Ground Rules
by Haven126
Summary: The first time a mission goes seriously sideways on Jack and Mac. Set in the Turkey Day universe, but far too big to be a Trimming.
1. Chapter 1

Standard disclaimers apply. I don't own any of these characters, please don't sue.

 **Content Warning** : Super mild tearjerk warning.

 **Apology:** I've attempted to keep my little stories as close as possible to (my admittedly limited knowledge of) real military tactics, language, and situations. This one is by far the least accurate, and I'm sorry about that. I'd love to get schooled if we have any vets out there reading this.

 **TOC** – Tactical Operations Center. **FAK** – First Aid Kit. **CAS Evac** – Casualty evacuation. **VHF** and **UHF** – types of radio. **SWAG** – Scientific Wild Ass Guess. **LZ** – Landing Zone.

-M-

There were certain scenarios that Jack Dalton had practiced so many times, the movement was rote. Many of them were things that had never actually happened in the field, not even once. But if they ever _did_ happen, he knew precisely what he was supposed to do to survive them.

So when he was suddenly presented with _impact_ plus _sudden loss of altitude_ plus _steep pitch_ plus _proximity to ground_ , he didn't even think. He reached for his vest, unclipped the restraint that was the only thing actually keeping his ass in that bird, and he rolled out of the open loading door of the steeply listing aircraft, onto the nice soft rocks about nine feet below.

Had he waited even two more seconds, he saw immediately that he would have died.

The pilot was trying to use the auto-rotation function of the helo to compensate for the loss of power, but the RPG - or shrapnel from the hit - had blown at least one rotor clean off. He got the bird slowed, a little, but she canted on him, and the obliterated front cone caught on the edge of a cliff about fifteen feet away. The wounded Blackhawk dropped like a brick, tumbling down a steep incline of jagged rocks, shedding pieces of itself as it went. Jack ducked reflexively, covering his head, and his helmet was weirdly smooth, and the wrong shape.

He was still wearing one of the helo's passenger helmets.

Jack left it on – protective gear was protective gear, after all – and tore his eyes away from the still-rolling helo, looking towards the sky. It was broad daylight, a little after midday, and he picked out the anti-aircraft missile's exhaust trail, following it back towards the north. Jack grabbed a general heading before he scurried to the edge of the rocky shelf and tried to get his bearings.

The helo was just settling at the bottom of a ravine, lying on its right side between two crags in one of the more mountainous ranges north-east of Kabul. He'd been caught napping – literally – and a glance at his watch told Jack they were about thirty minutes into the flight. The altitude would give them decent UHF range, and Jack clicked his radio, checking that his earpiece was still in, and the helmet hadn't dislodged it from his ear.

Helicopter helmets provided noise protection. No wonder it was so damn quiet.

Jack pulled it off and dropped it - he needed his ears. The echo of the crash was still slapping between the mountain passes, but what he didn't hear was any screaming.

Jack started searching for a way down, keying his radio. "Sweeper Sweeper, come back, over!"

The bird was still smoking, but as it turned out, stop drop and roll was also effective for aircraft. There was a decent fire at the cone, and another near what was left of the rotor column, but as long as the fuel pump had shut off as designed the diesel probably wouldn't catch. Jack scanned the wreckage another long moment, then he swore and pulled his rifle to his front. The weapon was still in working condition. Optics were out of alignment, though, and Jack swore again, and focused on the exposed left flank of the bird.

She'd been tore all to hell by the rocks. Her belly had been ripped open from the outside in, and the left loading door was straight-up gone. He could see that the seat anchors had failed, and the interior was a tangled up mess of canvas, straps, and uniforms loose in the cabin.

There was movement, under the smoke, and he hit his radio again. "Sweeper Sweeper, respond!"

He clocked motion in the cockpit, which was almost as smashed up as the cone. They were never getting that left door open, not without a cutting torch. They'd have to pull the pilots out through the main cabin –

A bullet pinged some rocks no more than a couple yards away, and Jack was flat on his back before he heard the crack of the rifle. About half a mile out.

Anti-aircraft missiles and snipers in the middle of fuckin' nowhere . . . who the hell was _out_ here?

Jack tilted his head up, grinding sand and small rocks into his scalp before he remembered to unclip his combat head gear from the front of his vest. He shoved himself behind better cover before he put his back against a rock and crammed the helmet back on his head. He caught both ends of the chinstrap with one hand and grabbed his radio with the other.

"Sweeper, Snakebite, _somebody_ gimme a goddamn sitrep!"

If the radio in the bird was out, they'd lost their relay point back to command. Jack tried to remember who the hell was on coms for this op. It was the combat engineer, Rama . . . llama –

Finally, his radio popped. "This is - Sweeper Actual . . . are we taking fire?!"

 _He_ was, at any rate. Dalton shifted over another couple yards, getting into a position that would give him decent coverage of the north side. "Sweeper, you need to find the fuel shutoff valve – one in the cabin, one on top of the rotor column. I have security, over."

With the optics out of adjustment, the view was blurry at best, and there was a lot of ground to cover. Jack focused on the heading he'd previously taken, where it looked like the missile had come from. Chances were good whoever had spotted him was in the same neighborhood.

"Where - the hell you at?!"

It wasn't the lieutenant – her voice was very distinctive, and that wasn't it – and Jack didn't bother to respond for the moment, watching not for detail but for movement. His odds of hitting a target half a mile out with no wind indicator and compromised optics were slim to none. At this point he just wanted to figure out what the fuck was going on.

The scan got him nothing, and he was about to demand a sitrep again when the louie got back to him. "We got multiple causalities, we're not goin' anywhere. Anybody got eyes on?"

Considering everyone else – everyone else alive – was pretty much in that helo with the lieutenant, Jack knew that was for him. "Negative, Sweeper. Rocket came from the north. Get that fire out ASAP."

 _And please tell me the kid is still alive_.

The radio went quiet, and Jack abandoned the optics for a moment, using his plain old eyeballs. The whole area was jagged mountains and steep ravines. On the north side of the slope he was on top of, there were clear tire tracks winding through the gorge bed. He followed them as far as his line of sight would allow, then evaluated the range beyond it.

No dust cloud yet.

Didn't mean there wouldn't be one soon.

Jack bellycrawled across the top of the ridge to look down the southern slope. Several people were now visible moving around the helo, and he didn't need the scope to pick out a familiar, leggy shape in a bandana. There was another person crouched beside him – probably the lieutenant – and she'd dragged him about twenty yards away, clear of the bird. He was guarding his ribs, but moving, and even as Jack watched she left him there and headed back for the aircraft.

Another soldier was on top of the helo, fighting with one of the fuel shutoff valves, and it looked like the fire at the cone was mostly out.

The less smoke the better. No point in sending up a damn invitation to come finish 'em off.

Even without marking their position, the site was not going to be defensible long-term. Not with the manpower they had. The two Air Force boys – if either of them were still alive – and a couple infantry, plus the louie and Mac from EOD, and one combat engineer made up Sweeper. Jack and the two sprocket greasers were not going to be enough, not if their enemy had anti-aircraft weapons.

They needed help.

Jack gave the northern slope another long look, and still saw nothing. There was no way the enemy could have been expecting them, they hadn't taken this route earlier in the morning and the US and her allies had nothing even remotely like regular air traffic or even a security presence this far north of Kabul. It was too hard to move supplies and men through these mountains.

Supposedly.

And even if they were already mobile and on the move, it would take them a good half hour in this terrain to make the dirt trail below. They had a little time.

Mind made up, Jack started his descent. It was steep but jagged, giving him plenty of places to put his feet, and he checked the helo debris as he passed it. The whole canvas net had been ripped clean off the left loading door, and Jack retrieved the combat first aid kit and a duffel marked 'EOD.' There was another pack, a little too far to conveniently grab, and Jack made a note to come back for it.

Below him, he was relieved to see Mac was up and moving. He'd clambered on top of the downed helicopter, near the cockpit, and he was whacking the shattered windshield with what looked like a rock.

Of course, after two hits the whole damn side of the windshield popped right out of the vulcanized rubber gasket. Jack saw a flash of red – god bless that kid's swiss army knife – and he watched MacGyver wedge the heel of a boot against the exposed edge of the windshield and start shoving the rest of it out of the damaged frame. The lieutenant had disappeared back into the main cabin, and Jack was finally close enough to recognize Private First Class Adams as the man who'd shut off the fuel. He had positioned himself outside the main cabin, and Jack watched the louie pass a pair of bloodied arms up out of the cabin to him.

By the time Jack had made it all the way down, they'd maneuvered the solider to the ground, and he recognized their other infantryman. He was very clearly dead.

As soon as he hit the floor of the ravine, Jack dropped the EOD duffel and doubletimed the FAK towards the helo. By then Mac had already deposited the windshield onto the sand and he was using it and the smoking, crumpled cone to get a leg up. A few feet away, a dark-haired man prairie-dogged out of the cabin, shoving the VHF radio pack out to Adams.

 _Thank god for small favors._

"Hey Ding Dong, that thing workin'?"

Their combat engineer put both his forearms on the lip of what used to be the loading door and heaved himself out, not immediately answering. He looked a little shell-shocked; he'd clearly discovered the interior wall with his face at some point on the trip into the ravine, but his complexion was too dark for Jack to make out whether or not his nose or jaw were broken. A hand helpfully shoved his ass up out of the hole, and the lieutenant tossed another pack over the side and pulled herself out.

She seemed to be moving fine. "Adams, check the radio. What's the word on security, Dalton?"

He liked Smiley. For a lot of reasons, but primarily because he could remember her damn name, since she never actually smiled.

Also, she was one tough broad.

"We got half an hour, mebbe a little more before we should start expectin' company." He passed her the first aid kit, which she accepted, and then he turned for the cockpit.

The kid had already lowered himself down into the smoky space, and Jack used the same leg up onto the crushed nose of the helo, peering in.

The pilot was alive, but only just. The helo's forward instrument panel had been shoved so far into his belly that Jack was surprised he hadn't been cut clean in half. Blood seeped around the buried plastic and metal. The pilot's upper torso was lying across the center console, and remarkably, behind the sun visor on his perfectly intact helmet, Jack could see his eyes were open, staring towards the ground.

Towards his copilot.

Mac had dropped in around him, standing on the copilot's door, and had just finished ripping open a roll of hemostatic gauze with his teeth. Jack couldn't see much, but the kid slapped it down on the copilot's neck, then folded it back over itself and applied pressure.

Harness must have cut him. He didn't move, didn't so much as suck air through his teeth, and Jack figured the guy was out cold. He glanced back at the pilot, and saw that he had his eyes. Jack offered him what he hoped was an easy smile.

"Be with you in a second, man."

The pilot didn't so much as twitch an arm or hand in his direction, but the corner of his mouth turned up, just a little.

They both knew there was nothing Jack could do. If they moved the instrument panel off him, he'd bleed to death in under a minute.

The inside of the cockpit had taken almost as much damage as the cone. It didn't look like any instrument had power, and the radio was part of the panel that had been blown inward by the missile. Jack was pretty sure even Carl's Junior couldn't get it working in the amount of time they had.

"Hey Mac, you got this?"

His tech turned his head a little, but didn't lean up. "Yeah. Jack-"

"I know, kid," he said softly. "I'll let Smiley know what's goin' on up here, then I'll be back to help ya."

Jack slid down the battered nose of the helo and glanced up at the ridges on both sides of them out of sheer habit, picking out that second pack he'd seen on the way down and scanning for anything else useful. The lieutenant had the combat engineer sitting in a narrow little band of shade, assessing his face. Guy was gonna be lucky if both his eyes didn't swell shut. He was in his late twenties, of Indian descent, and Jack honestly couldn't remember his name.

"Smiley."

She waved Adams over to take on the cleanup job, and Jack raised an eyebrow when he finally got a look at her head-on.

She stared at him a second, then glanced down at herself as they stepped off towards the rocks. There wasn't a single limb of hers not smeared with blood. "Not mine."

"You sure about that?"

There was a faint tremor in her right hand, which she noticed and immediately closed into a fist. Considering she was career EOD, Jack knew better than to call that adrenaline. She was good and shaken, figuratively if not worse.

She'd just lost a man, and he was about to tell her that she was gonna lose another.

"How are my pilots?"

Jack kept his eyes on the ridges. "Copilot's injured. Cap's not gonna make it." He nodded towards the abandoned radio pack. "Make any headway with that?"

She looked away for a long moment, and he gave it to her. Finally she answered, and did a passable job at keeping a steady voice. "Radio's dicked up but I think we can get it working. Any chance we were spotted going down on radar?"

Probably not. "Damn dune coons took us down too fast. A DNF wouldn't register, we woulda looked like we just fell off the fuckin' planet."

"Shit."

About summed it up. Losing radar contact over these mountain ranges wouldn't send up an immediate red flag. Help wasn't coming until they got the VHF radio up, or a couple hours from now, when someone finally figured out they hadn't arrived as scheduled. In the first scenario, they would be able to give general coordinates and expect CASEVAC before sunset. In the second, it would be straight up search and rescue, which could take days. Depending how irritated the locals were, and how many more anti-aircraft missiles they had, both scenarios could get complicated fast.

Jack figured he'd plan for three days without support and hopefully he'd be pleasantly surprised.

"You're about to give me more bad news, aren't you."

Jack kept his expression flat, knowing Adams was looking their way. "We can't hold this position. We're gonna have to take our wounded and blow the site."

They couldn't leave the Blackhawk – even as damaged as it was – for the enemy to loot. Once they took what they could carry, they had to make sure there was nothing salvageable left. And since he happened to have two EOD techs and a combat engineer lying around, Jack didn't think that was going to be a problem.

Smiley didn't look surprised. Or happy. "How bad's the copilot? 

"Dunno yet. Who's your medic?"

In answer, she glanced at the back end of the bird. Jack made out a pair of combat boots sticking out past what was left of the tail boom.

"It was - Corporal Serrano. I've got basic."

Deltas all had better than basic first aid training, mostly for trauma, but Jack was by no means a medic. All he had on him was his IFAK – which, as the name implied, was intended as an _individual_ first aid kit. Everyone else's IFAKs would be even more bare bones than his. The bird's kit would have some decent painkillers, but three days would be stretching it.

"Uh, Ramarao's got a broken cheekbone, probably broken jaw. MacGyver busted a couple ribs. Adams seems fine, I'm fine." She glanced at him, as if it had only just now occurred to her that he had been in that helo too. "You good?"

"Ain't the first time I took a header out of a bird." He was a little sore, but that was it. There were enough of them mobile to make this work, so long as the copilot could at least half-ass being able to walk. They had no stretcher, and with the helo completely missing her main rotors he couldn't think of a way to fashion one.

'Course, a certain EOD tech probably could.

"I'm gonna need ya to wire the bird to blow via remote detonator. There's vehicle tracks on the other side of that ridge." Jack indicated the one to the north. "We need to take out their vehicles and as many of those fuckers as we can right here, right now."

The locals still knew these mountains better than they did, but he liked their odds a lot better if their pursuers were also on foot. "How much boom goo you got?"

Smiley frowned deeply. "Enough for this job and ten others just like it." It was dismissive. "But what about Serrano and Boone? I'm not leaving them here."

It took Jack a second to place the second name – the pilot. He hated the idea of leaving them on site, but they didn't have the manpower to carry the bodies and frankly even if they did it would slow them down too much. Half their squad was injured, and dealing with that was going to be bad enough. "I'll take care of it. Leave me Adams."

She gave him a hard look. "Sergeant, we are _not_ leaving them in this bird-"

"No ma'am we are not," he agreed instantly, intentionally lowering his voice and hoping she'd take a hint. "I'll make sure they're squared away and safe til we can come back for 'em."

The lieutenant looked very much like she wanted to disagree, and she glared at the cliff to their right. Then it seemed to occur to her what she was looking at.

Rocks. And plenty of 'em. Once the helo was blown and the Tallies – or whoever the hell was out there – had a chance to see the debris was useless, they were going to abandon it to pursue the survivors.

Boone and Serrano would be fine. It was the rest of Sweeper she needed to worry about.

And she eventually came to the same conclusion. "Let me get a look at Higgins."

That could only be the co-pilot, and Jack agreeably stepped aside, and let her lead the way back to the cockpit. A career doing what he did made Jack very much appreciate the flyboys who came swooping out of the sky to pull their fat out of the fire. He made damn sure by the time he'd gotten off a flight he'd made eye contact with both pilots and he did his best to remember ranks and callsigns, if not last names. He'd never met these two before today, and he'd been planning to get to know 'em a little before he'd drifted off.

Boone was right where they'd left him – guy wasn't going anywhere and he knew it – and Mac had cut Higgins completely out of his flight harness. The hemostatic gauze had some blood spotting through it, but it looked like it'd mostly done the job of clotting the injury, and Mac had it taped up pretty good. Higgins was starting to come around, but he wasn't alert enough to help. Mac was leaning against the center console, craning his head out of the windshield hole, and his look of relief at spotting Jack approaching was tempered somewhat by the lieutenant's presence.

"His leg's jammed up under the collective," Mac said without preamble. "Jack, can you go up top-"

Jack gave him a nod and crawled up the cone to the top of the bird, laying on his belly and dangling over the left side of the windshield hole. It put him nearer to Boone than Higgins, and Jack put a light hand on the pilot's helmet.

"We're gonna get your nugget loose first, you just hang in there, son."

Jack felt the slightest nod in response. In the Air Force, a 'nugget' referred to an inexperienced pilot, which was a WAG on Jack's part. But it took a special someone to be more worried about his partner when he was missing his own bottom half, and Boone was watching every move they made with his copilot.

Jack kinda knew the feeling. His own nugget was breathing harder than he should have been, and he probably hadn't bothered to tape up those ribs.

The partner in question glanced up, checking his position. "When I get him standing, I need you to grab him and hold him up –"

"While you get him untangled. I got it, kid."

Mac just nodded, then glanced over his shoulder at the lieutenant. "Can you give me a hand –"

The two figured out the optimal hand-holds and counted it down, and combined they were able to twist Higgins up and around the center console. He wasn't coherent but he screamed, and when he jerked himself upright in an attempt to push himself away from the pain, Jack managed to snag the back of his flight suit. There was a wide strip of nylon – almost like a handle - that he'd always thought was on the back of jumps suits for just this purpose, and Jack grit his teeth and leaned further into the cockpit, trying to give the kid a little slack.

If Higgins hadn't been awake before, he sure as hell was now. "Wha'th . . . wha-"

"Calm down, Trent. You're okay. We were shot down." Smiley's voice was firm and calm. "MacGyver here is going to get the collective off you, and then we're going to get you out of here. You with me?"

Mac, to his credit, hadn't flinched, and Jack had a bird's eye view as he watched the kid break out his swiss army knife. He took off like, two bolts, and the entire collective just disintegrated into parts in his hands. They rattled down to the door, which Mac was standing on, and Jack immediately felt some of the resistance tugging on Higgins release.

Jack heaved the guy up a little higher, and then Smiley had him by the front of the flight suit, and she hauled him bodily out of the windshield hole.

Jack immediately rolled to his right and slid down the roof of the bird to the ground. By the time Mac had gotten his multitool squared away, Jack was in Smiley's old position, reaching in for him.

"C'mere, dude, watch those ribs –"

Mac didn't say anything about the help as he clambered out of the cockpit, and Jack kept a hand on him as he slid down the cone. As soon as Mac looked stable on his feet, Jack turned back to Smiley.

Higgins was on his back, gasping, and the right leg of his suit was bloody and torn. She went ahead and finished the job, ripping open his pant leg to get a look at the injury, but Jack could see immediately that it was a clean break. The leg was badly lacerated, but there was no bone sticking through the skin.

Given the state of that cockpit, he was damn lucky the limb wasn't crushed into paste.

"Yeah, he's gonna be fine." Jack gave the pilot – still watching them closely – a reassuring nod. "Get a splint on 'im, he'll be back in the sky in no time."

Mac scampered off without a word, Jack figured to get the first aid kit, but he came back also carrying a couple pieces of the aluminum framing of the cabin seats, and several harnesses. The lieutenant accepted them, lining them up unhurriedly beside the co-pilot's leg, and he picked up his head, trying to see what they were doing.

Smiley pushed him back down, pressing a morphine auto-inject pen into the top of the man's thigh. He didn't notice. "I have to set the leg, Trent."

She exchanged a look with Mac, who knelt on the co-pilot's other leg, and before Higgins could even agree, it was done. Mac passed Smiley the same hemostatic bandaging he'd used on the copilot's neck for his leg – none of them could stitch it, it'd have to wait - and ace bandage, which she used to stabilize the break site. Together they got the makeshift splint on and secure. Higgins was half out of it again, and Jack moved in smoothly to help the lieutenant get him on his feet. Mac was frowning but he let it go, and started putting the first aid kit back together.

Jack pulled one of the co-pilot's arms around his neck, supporting nearly all the weight on his right side, and Higgins picked up his head again. Jack hadn't gotten a good look at him before, but he was young, maybe only a little older than Mac. His eyes were a glazed green, bright with pain, and he got his first look at his bird.

"Wha . . . Alec . . ?"

Smiley was climbing up the cone to check on the pilot, and Jack hustled Higgins past, along the cabin towards what little shade the bird could offer just after midday. The airman started trying to backpeddle, but Jack didn't let him, and soon he found himself on his ass again in the sand.

"Alec . . . we'can . . . can'leave'im-"

"Relax, bud." Jack pressed a hand into his chest, laying him back flat, and Adams dragged one of the recovered packs over. Jack helped him get both of Higgins' legs up on it. Hard to tell how much of the blood in that cockpit had been the pilot's, and how much had been this kid's. He was pale and slurring his words, and if they expected him to be able to walk, he needed all the downtime they could give him. "It's okay."

"No . . . no, I needa-"

Adams looked like he had it under control, and Jack straightened to find Mac was right behind him. He was also pale, and looked conflicted.

"I left the kit for you, next to the cockpit."

Jack nodded, and resisted the urge to put a hand on the tech's shoulder. "You holdin' up?"

They both knew what he was asking.

Mac deflected – and if he hadn't Jack would have assumed he was dying – and glanced at the northern ridge. "How long do you think we have?"

A quick glance at his watch showed seventeen minutes had gone by.

"Little less than fifteen."

The kid absorbed that, then bent stiffly beside one of the duffels marked EOD. He pulled out a long loop of det cord and several bricks of C4, and then the lieutenant was right by his side.

"I got this, Mac. Go see if Ramarao is in any condition to help us. Adams, help Dalton."

With his tech focusing on the task at hand, and soon to be on the other side of the ridge, Jack headed back towards the cockpit. He found the first aid kit sitting right there, and unzipped the top compartment to find that Mac had arranged all the morphine auto-inject pens in easy reach. Jack made the loop around the nose of the downed craft, blocking out everything but the cockpit, and he shimmied up onto the cone, leaning a forearm on the windshield frame.

Boone's eyes slid towards him.

"He's gonna be fine, captain."

The pilot nodded slightly, then swallowed. His voice was nothing more than a hoarse whisper. "Couldja . . . get my helmet . . .?"

"Yeah, yeah." Jack was as gentle as he could be, but the pilot was jammed in there good, and he barely moved. Never made a sound. Once the helmet was off, Boone squinted up at the sky. There were deep lines etched in his tanned face, showing how many times he'd done exactly that.

Jack followed his gaze. "Yeah. Not even company grade weather."

He got another tired smile. "Damn thing . . . came from right up unner us . . ."

Jack just nodded. "Not your fault, captain."

"My bird, my fault." His eyes slipped back to his helmet, still in Jack's hands. "In the visor . . ."

Jack obediently spun the helmet around – and confirmed his suspicion that the pilot was named Alec – and flipped up the solar visor. Between the interior casing and the visor attachment, he saw a corner of white, and Jack gently teased it out. It was a photograph, still in pretty decent shape, and Jack grinned down at the brunette smiling back at him before he held the photo in front of the pilot.

Boone surprised him by picking up his left arm and taking it. The man's face crumpled a little, but as soon as he had it, he eased himself back into his previous position, and tilted it so he could see her properly.

"Beautiful lady," Jack told him, and he meant it.

"The best," Alec informed him in that same soft voice. "Millie. She makes the best . . . damn sangria you ever had."

Jack startled himself by chuckling. "Sangria? That little lady looks like she was born and raised in Cincinnati. Don't you people violate spaghetti with chili or somethin'?"

The pilot just raised his eyebrows a little. "S'weird ol' family recipe. That shit's just 'mazin'."

"You want some water? I mean, it ain't sangria but I can raid the MREs for a flavor pack . . ."

The pilot gave a short, sharp exhale, and his eyebrows bunched. Once it passed, he managed to swallow again.

"God no. You tryin' . . . t'kill me?" He waited a beat, long enough to make Jack good and uncomfortable, then a little grin bent his lips. "Gotcha."

Jack blew out a sigh. "That is one dark sense of humor you got there, son."

Boone made a small noise in the back of his throat, and Jack chose to believe it was agreement.

"Alright, this is how this is gonna go," Jack told him, setting the helmet to the side. "You're gonna suck on one of these fentanyl lollipops that I'm sure tastes just like Millie's sangria, and I'm gonna shoot you up to your eyebrows with the hard stuff. Then we're gonna move this panel. Once we get you outta there –"

"No sir."

Jack broke off, having fished one of the aforementioned sticks out of the kit, and regarded the man in front of him. He hadn't moved, eyes still on the photograph, and his blinks were slow. Still, he looked like he knew exactly what he was saying.

"Come on, cap, we ain't leavin' ya here. We gotta blow the bird."

Alec gave a little sigh. "Think it'll be . . . open casket?"

He weighed the odds. ". . . nah. I don't think we're gettin' outta this hole for a couple days. They'll getcha on ice back at the FOB, but the heat . . ." No amount of mortician's putty could undo the swell of two days' cookin' in a body bag.

"Save the . . . good stuff for them."

Jack found himself shaking his head. "You don't mean that, man, and I ain't gonna pull you outta here like that."

". . . what . . . snake eater like you can't stomach it?" Another half-smile. "I don't even got a stomach . . . t'stomach it with."

Jack couldn't help it. He laughed. Then he finished unwrapping the lozenge. It was longer than a toothpick, with what looked like a small white earplug on one end, and a little cannister on the other. "Jesus, dude. Now I _definitely_ want to see what you're like on Unkie White."

He thought the guy was gonna fight him, but the pilot opened his mouth and accepted the lozenge, and Jack tucked the earplug-looking side between his cheek and lower gums. The pilot gave it a half-hearted suck, then pulled a face.

"This is _not_ sangria, you fuckin' liar."

Jack gave him a confused look, then made a show of inspecting the wrapper. "Oh, yeah. My bad. Says it right here, this one's ass flavored ass."

The pilot almost choked, but then his face contorted with pain, and Jack actually _did_ feel like an ass.

"Sorry, man, I'm sorry-"

When the pilot could speak again, he pried his eyes open. "Couldja . . . do me a favor?"

"Yeah, dude. Whatcha need?"

He swallowed, and moved the shitty lollipop to the other side of his mouth. Jack gave the cannister end a quick squeeze to get the rest of the drug out, and Boone closed his eyes in thanks.

"One last thing. Can't seem to . . . reach my sidearm. Got one on ya?"

Dalton gave him a long look. "Now that ain't gonna happen, ol' son."

Alec gave the lozenge one last hard suck, then spat the empty plastic stick out. "I am still the captain . . . of this goddamned bird, and I don't give a shit what . . . unit you're with. You ride with me, you follow my orders. Now give me a damn sidearm."

Dalton bristled. "You said it yourself, you are a _captain_ in the United States Air Force, not some racehorse pulled up lame an' needin' to be put down. We don't know how bad it is til we get a look atcha." It wasn't like he couldn't override the captain. Grab his left arm and auto-inject enough morphine to knock him out.

But it wasn't like the pilot wasn't right. They didn't need to get him out of that cockpit to know that he was going to die, no matter what they did.

"You're not pullin' me . . . outta this cockpit alive. You hear me?" His voice was rough but steady. "And you're not wasting . . . those meds on a dead man."

Jack glanced down at the first aid kit, at the purple caps all lined up in a row. Outside of the two in his own kit, that was all they had.

"We can spare it and still take care of your nugget." That had to be it, listening to Higgins getting his leg set -

"You got maybe . . . ten minutes 'fore the Tallies get here?" The captain painfully transferred the photograph to his right hand. "And you're not pullin' . . . this thing outta me if . . . I c'n still feel it. No sir. Just gimme the . . . easy way out already."

Then he held out his left hand.

Jack glared. He was right, and he knew it. It would take half the morphine they had to kill him, and it would take seven, maybe eight minutes.

And whether he killed him with drugs or lead or even just time, that was still what it was.

"Soldier, I gave . . . you a fuckin' order."

He transferred the glare to the kit, which didn't offer up any help whatsoever, then he snatched it closed and reached down to his right thigh. The weapon was undamaged from the fall, and Jack pulled it free and gave Alec a long, steady look.

"I'll stay. You shouldn't be alone."

The pilot smiled – not at him, but at the photograph. "I'm not. Millie an' me, we'll be fine."

Alec's left hand was starting to shake, and Jack took a measured breath, then flicked off the safety and handed the weapon over, barrel towards the ground. The captain took it like he knew how to use it, and let it rest on the instrument panel a moment.

"Don't suppose you c'n . . . doctor things a little?" He grinned at his girl. "Hard to tell her I . . . died instantly if autopsy says otherwise . . ."

Jack reached out and gripped the other man's wrist, still holding the gun. He gave it a good hard squeeze. "I'll do what I can, cap."

"Make sure she knows . . . she was here."

Jack nodded, and released Alec's wrist. The pilot closed his eyes and dipped his head, then pressed the photo to his lips. He was still holding her there when Jack slid off the battered nose of the helo and walked away.

He gave his face a quick scrub and headed back around towards the helo's belly. "Adams, you guys pull the HRPs-"

His voice died in his throat when his eyes fell on a familiar, lanky shape crouched beside Higgins, most of the way through constructing a crutch.

It wasn't Adams.

Mac cast a glance over his shoulder. "Adams went to run a clacker to Ramarao, they're almost . . ." He trailed off as well as he read Dalton's expression. " . . . you . . . uh, you need a hand?" The kid glanced back down at Higgins, obviously trying to be sensitive, and the copilot struggled to sit up.

God _damn_ it.

"Aren't you supposed to be plantin' some explosives on the other side of that ridge?" He almost grabbed his tech by the arm, not even sure what the hell he intended to do with him. Had he been on the other side of the rocks he might not have heard anything, but he wasn't and Jack couldn't get him there in time.

Both the younger men flinched at the gunshot, Mac right beside him and Higgins on the ground, and Jack set his jaw.

"Send Adams to me as soon as he gets back." He kept his voice level and turned away, towards the small pile of equipment that had already been salvaged from the cabin.

Behind him, Higgins sucked in a shaky breath, Dalton could hear him scrabbling in the sand but he'd rather Mac stay with him than follow him up to the cockpit. Jack started pawing through the bags, and sure enough, they'd pulled the helo's egress kit, including extra water, MREs, tarps, two M9s, ammo, and human remains pouches – HRPs.

Better to call them what they were, and Jack pulled two body bags from the three pouch pack.

"Alec – tha'was -"

Mac said something to Higgins, his voice soothing and too low to make out, and Jack left him to it, making a quick retreat towards the tail of the bird. The corporal hadn't gone anywhere, and Jack could only surmise from the damage that Serrano had been sitting right where the rocks had torn up through the helo's belly. Unlike the pilot, he probably _had_ died instantly, or close to it. Jack spread one of the bags beside him, hating that it was rote, it was muscle memory just as much as bailing from the falling helicopter had been.

It didn't take him more than sixty seconds to get the corporal squared away. A tiny avalanche of pebbles caught his attention, and Jack looked up to see Adams scrambling back down the steep slope.

His first instinct was to snap something about following orders, and the private first class's apparent inability to. If he had, Mac would have been on the other side of that ridge, and spared the job of trying to calm a distraught and injured airman. Instead, Jack waited impatiently for the man to finish his descent.

"Any activity up there?"

The private nodded, stumbling to a stop a few feet in front of him. "Yessir. Cloud of dust over the ridge past this one. Smiley and Ramarao are settin' up four charges, all remote det."

The lieutenant didn't seem to be worried about running out of materials. Given the mission had been to eval a bridge and potentially level it, Jack was pretty sure the EODs' packs were loaded with high capacity explosives. Since the game was going to move from ambush to cat and mouse, and they were the mice, bombs were going to come in handy.

Still pissed off despite the relatively good news that they had a little more time than he'd originally estimated, Jack just grunted and turned, expecting the private to follow. Mac was crouched next to Higgins, one hand on his chest to keep him down, and he still hadn't shaken the shock out of his eyes. They slipped to some spot on Jack's leg – the empty holster – and then Jack was past them. He waited until he'd looped the nose of the bird before he shook out the other body bag.

"Get up here, help me get this thing offa him."

It went much faster with help. Jack had to crawl into the cockpit and put his feet against the instrument panel to shove it clear. Alec had chosen the under the chin technique, ensuring the slug went up and couldn't possibly hit anyone on the ground, and it had left his face perfectly intact. Millie was still there in his right hand, not even crumpled. Jack rescued the photo and reached under his fatigues for his tee, carefully wiping the blood off the slick paper. Then he tucked her into a chest pocket on his vest, and recovered his and Boone's sidearms.

Once Boone was freed from his harness and transferred to the bag, Jack pointed to a likely spot along the cliff, where there was a small rockslide just waiting to happen, and Adams went to clear them a space. Jack slid Millie from his vest and tucked her safe and sound into Alec's left jumpsuit pocket, just over his heart. Then he went to help Adams.

His radio popped just as they were carrying Serrano to the front of the bird. "Sweeper Sweeper, be advised enemy is less than five minutes out, over."

That was his cue. "Adams, finish up here. Not one hint of the bags or anythin' else showing, you got me? Not one."

The private pulled up short. "Sir, don't you need me up on the ridge-"

"I need you right here, makin' sure these men are safe til we come back for 'em. After that, double check the gear. Remember we got three wounded. Higgins and MacGyver ain't gonna carry anything but themselves, Ramallama's gotta go light. Give him the corporal's rifle. You, me, and Smiley'll hump the extra."

Jack jogged back to the helo's belly, where he found a quietly crying Higgins all alone in the sand. The copilot seemed a little more alert; he opened his eyes when he heard someone approaching, and quickly wiped his face.

Dalton took a knee beside the young pilot. "How you feelin', airman? Up for a little hike?"

Higgins did a passable job at sucking down a deep breath. "Ready t'pull cock anytime."

It was Air Force speak for bailing on a shitty party. Jack gave him a little grin. "Glad to hear it. We're gonna set off a few party favors of our own here in a minute, and I need your ass up over that ridge." Jack indicated the steep slope to their right. "Adams'll help you. Can ya do that?"

Higgins reached over and grabbed hold of the strange, forked cane slash crutch that Mac had fashioned for him. Jack could see now that the V, which he had thought was where an arm would go, was in fact the bottom of the contraption, and one of the legs of the V was shorter than the other. "Good t'go."

"Good man." Jack made to get to his feet, and the hand that had been gripping the cane crutch transferred to his ACUs.

"The . . . the captain . . ."

Jack suppressed a sigh, then shook his head. "He's gone, son."

"You're . . . y'sure?"

Pretty damn sure. "Yeah."

"'Cuz . . . self inflicted gunshots . . . survival rate is s'prisingly high –"

Jack shut that down before he could go any further. "I'm sure, kid."

The grip on his uniform pants tightened. "Don't . . . wanna leave 'im if . . ."

"He your training officer?" Jack glanced up at a soft sound above him, and he saw fingers appear on the visible edge of the helo. Someone was pulling themselves out of the cabin.

". . . yeah . . ."

"Hell of a pilot," Jack told him, focusing back on Higgins. "Even without power, he slowed the bird down, saved six lives in four seconds. Ya couldn't'a been paired with better."

The kid's eyes welled up with fresh tears, and his grip loosened. A pack dropped behind Jack, attracting both their attention, and Jack heard MacGyver slither to the ground on the other side of the bird.

That he'd chosen the smoother path – over the curved roof of the bird, rather than straight down – told Jack exactly how much those rib were bothering him, and he made a mental note to have Smiley wrap him up when they had some time. Last thing they needed was a floating rib to do some real damage.

Jack got to his feet, and Higgins' hand slipped off, absently seeking the cane crutch. Dalton gave him a nod, then circled back around the tail of the bird, expecting to meet MacGyver halfway. He didn't; he saw the kid's shadow near the cockpit, and Jack frowned but left him to it, starting the uphill climb back to his previous position up on the ridge.

This time he was well aware eyes could be on them, and he kept to cover, locating Smiley and Ramallama a few yards away. Jack bellycrawled towards them, taking a quick peek around the rocks, and saw that their enemy was just coming into view, in the form of an old pickup truck, a repurposed delivery truck, and a late 90s Volkswagon Beetle on way bigger than standard issue tires.

The trucks made sense – they intended to haul some goods. The Beetle, though, that threw him a little, and he glanced towards Smiley, who was holding two remote detonators.

He figured once those four charges blew, the survivors would hunker down, expecting to take fire. When they didn't, they'd either wait for backup, or – if enough of them survived – they'd scale the ridge. Sweeper and their gear needed to be over the next one before that happened.

Even though they were only a few yards apart, and the enemy were still in their vehicles with no chance of overhearing them, Jack keyed the radio.

"Sweeper, what's our status, over."

Smiley glanced over at him, but hopped on the radio as well. "This is Sweeper Actual. Four explosives placed along the vehicle path, all remote det. Sweeper Five, report status, over."

It wasn't the first op he and Mac had been assigned a different callsign, but he'd been calling Angus 'Snakebite' going on two hundred days now, and calling him Sweeper Five was just weird.

The radio popped. "Helo's ready to go. Remote det. Over."

That musta been what the kid was doing. Wiring the bird to light up.

Jack got back on the horn. "Sweeper Sweeper, be advised, we are pulling back to the south ridge, repeat, the ridge south of the helo. Sweeper Three will be assisting our flyboy. Sweeper Four, you're packing light, assist Sweeper Five as needed. Once over the ridge, Sweeper Three will find you a secure position. Stay put and get that VHS radio up and working. Move out."

On his left, he saw Ramallama do a somewhat decent approximation of staying low as he picked out his descent path, and once he was out of sight, Jack took over his position beside Smiley.

She didn't even bother to look at him, eyes on the slow-moving caravan. "You gonna keep ordering my men around?"

"Long as I'm on security." He slipped the rifle sling over his head, settling into position, and eyeballed the distance before he started adjusting the optics. When he had it about as good as he could get it without actually testing, he shifted onto his right side, made a loose fist, and punched her lightly in the right shoulder.

"Punch buggy."

The look she threw at him was incredulous. "Are you a fuckin' first grader?"

Jack grinned broadly. "Naw. Mebbe fourth grade or so."

And he finally got one. It wasn't much, it almost looked like it hurt her a little, but her lips thinned, and pulled upwards in something that wasn't exactly a grimace.

"My older brother loved that game. You have any idea how many damn bugs were in New York City in the eighties?"

He did not, but it was easy to imagine. "More than in the Lone Star State combined, I'd wager."

"Damn straight. God, the bruises we'd have after a fifteen minute car ride."

"Well, at least ammo wasn't a problem."

She made a noise of agreement, and they watched the vehicles clamber closer. "Speaking of, how much you got?"

"Fifty rounds on the Barrett, seventy-four for the nine mil. I'm carryin' half, rest is in my pack." The egress kit would have had two Beretta M9s and thirty rounds per. Besides the M4, he had no idea what Serrano had been carrying, and was trusting Adams to move it to his or her pack. 

She didn't say anything about Jack's missing bullet. "So what's the plan here?"

"Disable all three vehicles and as many soft targets as possible. I figure you know how to accomplish that better than me."

"I have a little experience," she agreed grimly. "Then pull back, set up on top of the next ridge, rinse and repeat?"

He knew he liked her for a reason. "You got it."

After that, there wasn't much time to chitchat. The lead pickup finally made it to the relatively clear path in the gorge below, and it pulled up generally in the area he figured they would. Even with the scope close to accurate, he couldn't see where Smiley and the combat engineer had buried the explosives. The vehicles were packed with Afghans, almost two dozen all totaled, but he couldn't tell their tribe affiliation or anything else useful, other than several of them had M16s, the rest AKs, and there was a grenade launcher per truck.

Dalton re-evaluated the plan. There was no way in hell he was going to let them chuck an RPG over the ridge. If those two weapons didn't get taken out in the explosions, he was going to have to do it the old fashioned way.

"Sweeper Sweeper, advise when you are secure, over."

He'd barely taken his finger off the transmit button when Smiley blew the first two charges.

The VW had been tailgating the delivery truck, and she got both. The truck flipped, top facing them, and the Beetle went straight up airborne, but somehow came back down on all four wheels. Three of 'em came right off.

The pickup truck gunned it, assuming it had triggered a timed blast and it could outrun the other, and instead they drove right into it. It was a direct hit, right in the undercarriage, and the truck's fuel tank blew. It was in several pieces, and Jack didn't pay it any more attention. No chance anyone survived.

He saw a man wriggle out of the driver side window of the delivery cab, an easy target, but he didn't fire. A much slighter figured followed, both dropping to the other side of the truck for cover. There was no movement in the bed, just a lot of bodies, and Jack couldn't find the grenade launcher. With any luck, fire would eventually encounter one of the grenades and take care of that little problem.

The bug surprised him, though. Damn thing popped open like a clown car, and three figures piled out. They dragged a fourth, no way to know if he was alive or dead, and they huddled behind it, screaming to their colleagues by the delivery truck.

So five, maybe six survived. With their forces cut by three quarters, most likely they'd wait for backup, or straight up run. Plenty of smoke to indicate they'd hit trouble, even if their radios or walkies were out of commission.

The bottom of the delivery truck caught fire like it meant it – probably the oil pan - and the men there cried out, then sprinted for the cover of the VW Beetle. Jack didn't move a muscle.

"That work for you?" Smiley's voice was barely a whisper.

He caught her looking at him out of the corner of his eye. "Remind me not to piss you off." Then he jerked his head in the general direction of behind them. She bellycrawled back from the edge, and he made her descend first, keeping an eye on the flaming vehicles until he figured she was about two-thirds of the way down. Then he followed after.

Sweeper was most of the way up the next ridge. Adams had the airman, but he was also the only infantryman they had left, and he was leading the way. Ramallama and Mac followed, and of _course_ his goddamn EOD was carrying a pack.

Nobody in this whole damn outfit could follow an order. Not one.

The Blackhawk showed no signs of a boobytrap, and even knowing where they'd tucked Boone and Serrano away, he could barely tell. Depending how serious Mac had been when he'd wired the bird, Jack thought there was a pretty good chance the explosion wouldn't even move the smaller rocks. He took a quick read of the position off the two ridges, rather than the helo, so he could accurately describe the site after the Blackhawk was vaporized. Then he scooped up his pack – somewhat mollified to feel that it was heavier than usual - and he hustled to catch up.

The next ridge was a little more broad, giving them plenty of places to hide, and Adams picked a decent spot, protected from sight unless you were dead in front of them. By the time Jack made it up there, everyone had settled in, and MacGyver had the radio pack in front of him, in several pieces. Wires were sticking out everywhere, and Jack was about to ask if he'd used the same rock on the radio that he had the windshield, but then he realized the broken bits were legitimately broken.

Mac had salvaged them from the cockpit.

The kid still looked pale, and Jack couldn't tell if the grimace was from discomfort or frustration. They'd tucked Higgins in beside him, again on his back with his legs up, and his face in some shade. His eyes were closed and his chest was rising and falling rapidly. Everyone else sitting there looked up at them expectantly, and it was clear from their expressions that the seriousness of their situation had finally set in.

Smiley grabbed the FAK and headed towards Higgins, and Jack took a knee by Adams and Ramallama.

"Ding Dong, you got any maps of this part of the mountains?"

The engineer could have been glaring daggers; it was too hard to tell with both his eyes swelled half shut. "It's Ramarao. If you can't make your flaccid Texan tongue wrap around that, call me Arush."

Jack reared back and held up a hand. "Whoa there. Let's not be draggin' the great Republic of Texas into this now. Maps, Ramallama. Yes or no."

"Just ignore him. He'll get it right when it counts," Mac advised, from the other side of their little clearing.

The engineer muttered to himself, too low for anyone to make out – and, Jack suspected, in Punjabi. Then he rustled around in his pack.

While the engineer was looking, Jack turned to Adams. "Keep an eye on the north ridge. Lemme know when you see activity." The infantryman nodded, then slid his eyes past him, Jack suspected to Smiley. Since technically he was giving the order as it related to security, he didn't see a need to check with the lieutenant, but she either agreed or was ignoring them, because Adams grabbed his M4 and headed back towards the edge of the ridge.

Didn't matter. Jack still wasn't going to let the crunchie off the hook for letting Mac carry a pack.

"Not that I think you're capable of reading it," the engineer muttered as he came up with a thick rectangle of paper.

"Well, it's all one big pretty picture, so I think I can manage it, Pajamas," Jack drawled, snatching the map right out of his hands. The combat engineer just stared at him.

Jack glanced at the map key, then started unfolding it, looking for the right coordinate grid.

"He's the one in pajamas," Ramallama finally grumbled, glancing over at the flightsuit-clad copilot while he put his pack back in order. The airman had clearly paid for the scramble up the slopes; Jack could hear the pain on his breath, and Smiley was being gentle as she tried to get a better look.

"Come on, man, and you were doggin' me for readin'? Ain't you ever heard of llamas in pajamas?" Jack found the grid he was looking for and spread the map in the middle of the clearing, grabbing a few handy rocks to pin the corners down.

"It's Bananas In Pyjamas," Mac corrected absently. "You're thinking of Llama Llama Red Pajama."

Jack paused. "Really?" Then he thought better of it. "Got the book on your nightstand, doncha."

MacGyver let it pass with a distracted shake of his head, concentrating on the radio pack. Smiley, however, jammed a morphine auto-injector into Higgins' thigh, and after the young pilot yelped, she turned towards them.

"You know, I thought you were exaggerating, Hollywood, but you were spot on. He really is an ass."

Jack looked up in time to see the corner of Mac's mouth turn up.

"Hollywood, huh?" Of _course_ Mac's EOD unit had gone for the easy moniker. "What, your unit don't know your first name?"

The other side of Mac's mouth turned up, forming a tired smirk. "Oh they do, Jack. They just have a little something called respect."

"Aww. Now that ain't nice. I got plenty'a respect for ya, Carl's Junior, you know that." He was cut off by a quiet pop in his ear.

"Sweeper, we got activity on the north ridge, over."

Now that was _way_ the hell too early. Those little shits had really climbed the ridge?

Jack exchanged a glance with Smiley, all the levity gone from her expression, and he headed back up the slope. "Sweeper Three, hold position, do _not_ engage, over."

He found Adams in a reasonably good place, M4 up on a rock, and he tapped the infantryman on the foot to get him to shove over. Jack took his position, but he didn't even bother to use the Barrett's optics.

There were at least a dozen men working their way down that slope.

His first thought was a competing tribe, but one of them, the very slight one, looked familiar. Jack settled in behind the scope and caught the singe on the kid's scarf.

And it _was_ a kid. No more than fifteen years old, an AK strapped to his back.

Jack moved on to another target. Maybe seventeen. He finally found an adult among them, and behind him was a leggy dark-eyed youth who looked like he didn't weigh enough to use that grenade launcher he was carrying.

Not a damn one of them even had a beard.

Jack lifted his head with a curse and rolled onto his side, giving the position back to Adams. "Radio me the second one of 'em steps beyond the bird and so much as looks in our direction."

The private nodded, eyes wide, and Jack stayed low, just in case more were topping the ridge. Either he and Smiley hadn't let the whole convoy arrive, or another had been dispatched to catch up to the first. There was no way they could have responded that quickly to the smoke. Which meant reinforcements, if any had been sent, were also well on their way.

They couldn't take them all out with the bird. And they sure as hell couldn't hold the ridge against so many.

As soon as he was sure he was out of line of sight, Jack doubletimed it back to their position. Smiley had Higgins sitting up, and she looked up at Dalton as he dropped back to the map.

"Pack it up, kids. We're oscar mike in three." Jack scanned the topography, getting his hearings. Over the next southern crest, there was a kind of connecting ridge that served as a backbone to the neighboring range. It was definitely the best path to go on foot, with the ravines on both side being even steeper than the ones they'd already climbed. And it would take four-wheeled vehicles half the day to go around.

Jack pointed it out on the map as the lieutenant crouched beside him. "I need you and Ramarao to make this go away. I don't care if you collapse it or make the whole goddamn thing a minefield, but when you're done, nobody crosses."

Smiley took it in, turning the map a little. "How many are coming?"

The clearing was too small to be delicate about it, and they already had everyone's eyes. Jack found himself looking towards MacGyver, frozen in the act of the stuffing the last of the scavenged radio pieces into his pack.

This was not a situation he ever wanted the kid in, and it was going to get worse before it got better.

"Looks like we flew right over a damn recruitment site. Dozens, maybe more. Well armed. They ain't interested in the Blackhawk. They're interested in shuttin' us up." He stabbed the map with a finger. "We gotta stop 'em here, buy us some time to call in the cavalry." Then he looked back up at Mac. "I know you're hurtin', dude, but you gotta get that hunk'a junk workin', and I mean right now."

Mac's lip set in a pale line, and he nodded once.

The lieutenant grabbed the map, shaking off the paperweight rocks. "How much time do we have?"

Jack looked her square in the eye. "Not enough. Me an' Adams can guarantee you twenty, anything after that's scared money."

Smiley balked. "I'm not leaving you here-"

"If you can walk us across it great, otherwise we'll take the long way 'round and lay a fake trail."

Finally her voice dropped, to a whispered growl. "I know who you are, Dalton, but Adams is a goddamn private first class and he is _not_ trained for this-"

"We have the high ground and plenty of cover." He matched her volume and intensity, and saw no need to mention the additional grenade launchers. "Me and Adams are all you got, lieutenant. If we all stick together, we lose this fight here and now." Then he held out his right hand for the remote.

Not for the first time, he had to remind himself that he was not the ranking officer here, and threatening a superior officer into doing what you wanted them to wasn't always the best move.

But in this case, logic won out. She glared at him, then slapped the detonator remote into his hand, and Jack gave his partner one last look. He'd been around Mac long enough to know the kid wasn't just brilliant, he was a certified genius, and he'd already put it all together even if he couldn't hear everything. Mac's blue eyes looked a little sharper than usual, but also uncertain, and Jack shot him a reassuring grin.

He'd get the radio up and working, and Ramallama was their com man. He knew how to call in support.

They'd be fine.

Jack turned on the combat engineer, who was wearing Serrano's M4. "You trained on that weapon, specialist?"

Ramallama gave a quick shake of his head. His left eye was swelled almost completely shut.

Jack was at his side in three long strides. He pulled the weapon up, making sure the barrel was pointed at rock. "See this little guy here?" He indicated the safety. "This is safety on, this is semi-auto. You do not move this to burst unless the enemy is ten feet in front of you and there are eight of 'em. You hear me?" The last thing they needed was a combat engineer tearing through ammo like they tore through buildings.

The engineer nodded, indicating he got the idea, and Jack put it back into his hands. "If you can't see, don't shoot." Jack turned back to Smiley, who had pulled a holster out of the egress kit and was helping herself to an M9.

There was nothing left to say, so Jack left them in the lieutenant's capable hands and made it back to Adams before he got back on the horn. Fifteen to twenty men – mostly boys – were at the crash site, either working their way down the slope or pouring over the helo. A few had set up a defensive perimeter, facing them, but it looked like they figured the Americans had set up IEDs to blow up the vehicles and then bailed. No one else seemed to be coming over the north ridge, and Jack left Adams where he was and selected a position about twenty yards away.

He got on the radio. "Sweeper Three, I'm gonna zero in my scope and see if I can't convince anyone else to join the party. If anyone makes a run for us, force 'em to take cover behind the bird. How copy, over."

There were a couple large rocks between them, so he didn't have line of sight on Adams, but the response came back at once. "Sweeper Six, good copy, over."

His first target had to be the grenade launcher, child soldier or not, and Jack made it quick and clean. The moment the rifle cracked, everyone started scurrying, and Jack heard the M4 crank up to his left. Jack then picked out the furthest target, on the top of the opposing ridge, and put a bullet center mass. It was ever so slightly low, and Jack adjusted the scope.

He couldn't get it any more accurate than that until he added some distance, but it was good enough.

Adams did a decent job at keeping the enemy off the southern slope, but the M4 was a much more obvious target, and Jack heard him start cussing when the Tally started shooting back. Jack picked off the adults first, hoping the younger boys were unwilling conscripts and would just hide behind a rock and stay there, but it didn't seem to make much difference to the amount of return fire.

They'd already drunk the kool-aide. Kids had probably been indoctrinated in school. Jack did the best he could to work around them, but he wasn't going to let them take a piece outta him or Adams.

A sniper set up on top of the opposing ridge, not well enough, and Jack put him down. Then he unhurriedly exchanged his spent magazine for a fresh and keyed his radio.

"Sweeper Three, how you doin' on ammo, over."

"I got two and a half mags."

It was amazing how quickly active combat impacted radio discipline. "Sweeper Three, keep it to burst fire. When you're down to your last mag, we'll blow the bird. Break. Sweeper, gimme a sitrep, over."

In the end, he and Adams were able to buy about eighteen minutes. There were clearly still men on the other side of the north ridge, which became obvious when a mortar sailed over it, landing about twenty yards short on the southern slope. Jack didn't see it in time to call it, he just curled himself into a ball and covered his head as the rocks sprayed up.

"Sweeper Three, pull back, they're gonna walk those right to you!"

No sooner had he said it than other came over the ridge, danger close to Adams' position. He didn't hear anything after the explosion, not over the radio or with his ears.

"Sweeper Three, sitrep!"

There wasn't a damn thing Jack could do about it, whoever was launching them was just shy of the top of the northern ridge. Those who had taken cover around the helo were starting to duck out, and Jack knew time was up.

He pulled the remote from his vest, flipped up the safety, and put his thumb on the button. "Sweeper Sweeper, AO is hot!"

Then he clicked the button.

If he didn't know his partner as well as he did, he would have said Mac was mad as a mama wasp and eager to get some. But Jack _did_ know the kid, and he tucked that explosion away under "when Mac actually follows orders, he takes them literally." Obviously Smiley had told him to make sure there wasn't anything left, because that was exactly what MacGyver had done.

When shit stopped raining down, Jack chanced a glance over the rocks, and found the site was devastated. If anyone down there was alive, they sure as hell weren't getting up and comin' after them any time soon. Dalton stayed low, and headed to the last place he'd seen Adams.

His radio crackled. "Sweeper Three, Sweeper Six, sitrep!"

The private had taken his advice and tried to retreat, and Jack found him on his back, looking stunned, about six feet down the southern slope. He was dirty, and his vest looked like it'd taken a little heat, but he was breathing and awake. Jack slid between the rocks and used his ass as a brake, grabbing the man by his vest to check.

No visible blood. Adams jerked in his hands, then picked up his head, blinking rapidly.

"You good?"

The tall man nodded, then grimaced and tried to actually get his shit together. Jack hauled him up into a sitting position and was somewhat reassured when the private checked his weapon seemingly on autopilot. Jack got back on the radio.

"Sweeper Sweeper, helo's vapor. Sweeper Three's oscar mike to your position. Don't blow him up." Then he released the radio and patted Adams on the helmet. "Fall back to Sweeper, take up rear guard. I got the rest of these d-bags."

Adams blinked at him, a little owlishly, and Jack pulled them both to their feet, giving Adams a helpful shove in the right direction. "Move out!"

Then Jack returned to the ridge.

All told, he managed to hold the position another fifteen, maybe sixteen minutes. Far longer than he'd dared hope. He let three or four curious folk pop up for a closer look, and once they just started to believe he'd retreated, he let the Barrett explain how wrong they were. Then he played a merry game of whack a mole while their artillery guys tried to figure out his position. He got them to waste a good dozen mortars before they wised up, and put three men with rocket launchers along the northern ridge.

If he took one, the other two would spot his position and fire.

Jack selected a nice little natural ranger grave almost directly across from one of 'em and shot the missile, not the man. The explosion startled everyone long enough for Jack to take the second, and then he rolled his ass right down the southern edge of the ridge. The third rocket hit dead on his old position, and Jack swore when a particularly spiteful rock bit into the back of his neck.

That was about all he could do. The rocket trick was only gonna work once, and they'd move slow now that he'd trained 'em not to trust he was really gone.

"Sweeper Sweeper, I am oscar mike to your position, please do not shoot me, over." The very last thing they needed today was a friendly fire incident.

Then Jack slung his rifle onto his back and hauled ass.

He wasn't even within sight of the natural little land bridge before his radio crackled. "Sweeper Six, when you hit the street sign, call in and we will walk you through. How copy, over."

Street sign? Jack keyed the radio, even as he ran. "Good copy, Sweeper."

Turned out the street sign was just that – a neat column of rocks about waist high, topped with a bright red marker declaring 'MINES' with the triangle and skull and crossbones.

Smiley wasn't even trying to be subtle.

"Sweeper, found your street sign, over."

"I see you, Sweeper Six. Proceed dead ahead about a hundred and fifty meters."

Which was roughly the first third of the length of the 'bridge'.

Smart. Tell 'em straight up to expect mines, then don't bother to waste any explosives for the first good bit. Once they started to get cocky, they'd start blowin' up. Slowed 'em down while conserving explosives.

Jack did as he was instructed. The next voice on the radio made him smile.

"You're doin' great, Jack. See the little lion on top of the flat rocks on your left?"

Mac knew how much he hated bombs. Jack scanned the area, and sure enough, there was a little formation that looked just like a lion, sunning itself on the rocks.

"Go around it to the right. Give it about ten feet."

In that way, Mac walked him rapidly across the land bridge. The Yoda rock. The Wily Coyote hole. Mount Rushmore. Things he knew Jack would spot immediately in an otherwise utterly nondescript landscape. Jack managed the crossing at a fast walk, and he was way the hell more confident in Mac's directions than he would have been with distances and degrees of turn.

He could also tell by his partner's voice that it was taking effort. He and Smiley had been working hard and fast, and the kid was about beat. They needed to find a place to hole up, as out of the heat as possible, and get some food and water into him. The whole squad needed to take a breath.

And get that damn radio working, or all of this was gonna be for nothing.

Smiley and Mac were working on a set of tripwires by the time Jack had approached within yelling distance, and they waited for him to pass before Smiley gave Mac a nod, and the kid carefully drew some dull, very thin nylon through an eye hook he'd wedged between a couple stones. Jack only saw the spiderweb of string pull taut by the way tiny rocks and dirt moved as the thread lifted. It was creepy, like a bunch of ants had all erupted out of the dust at once.

Mac secured his end, and Smiley did something, then tucked a couple fist-sized rocks around it, and carefully backed off. MacGyver did the same, much less gracefully, and Jack actually caught him by the back of his vest as he stumbled.

The kid hissed in pain and Jack let go immediately, grabbing his right bicep instead. Mac was just as pale as he'd been before, and there wasn't much sweat on him. Considering he'd been working in the blistering sun with zero cover, it wasn't a good sign, and Jack hauled him back a safe distance from whatever the hell he and the lieutenant had just rigged up, and got a better look at him.

Mac's eyes were still sharp, and a little too bright. His lips were almost the same color as his face. "I'm good, just – lay off the vest."

Jack did no such thing. He moved to unclip the side buckles, even as Mac frowned and swatted at him. "Smiley, you check the kid yet?"

He got the right side undone and went for the velcro, brushing the lower quadrant of the vest as he pulled MacGyver around, and the embedded ceramic plate, that was intended to stop bullets, swung in like it was hinged. It barely brushed the kid, and he dropped like a sack of rocks. 

Dalton was totally unprepared; Mac's knees hit the sand before Jack managed to find something safe to catch, which ended up being his helmet. Mac's mouth was wide open but he wasn't making a sound, and Jack dropped beside him and laid him back as gently as he could, slipping his hand from the helmet to the back of the kid's neck.

MacGyver was usually wound pretty tight, but Jack could have bounced a quarter off Mac's back. Tense didn't begin to cover it.

" _Smiley_!"

Mac finally remembered how to breathe, sucking in a sad little gasp of air, and Jack had the vest off him in a flash. There was no blood on his ACUs, but Mac choked again, a little more deeply, when Jack's fingers brushed the front of his uniform shirt, and Jack pulled it up off his chest to unzip it. The tee beneath was unmarked.

The lieutenant was on his other side, and she didn't hesitate to pull the tee loose and roll it up. "Easy, kiddo. Talk to me. Where does it hurt?"

That ended up being a very stupid question.

Jack didn't change his expression in the slightest at the deep red bruising, which quickly tapered off into dark purples, then blues near the edges. It started just below where his sternum ended, right at the kid's solar plexus, and would have been between the top and second grouping of an eight-pack if Mac had one. It stretched half the width of his ribcage, and the deepest part of the bruising was the size of a fist.

Dalton brushed the bruised skin as gently as he could, and they watched Mac flinch. While his abdominal muscles contracted, nothing beneath the bruising seemed to, and the skin felt abnormally rigid. Mac was gulping air, but the flesh around the bruises barely moved.

Jack didn't need to be a medic to recognize what he was looking at, and apparently neither did Smiley. She pulled the tee up higher, inspecting his upper chest, but the bruising – more accurately, the bleeding – didn't seem to be high enough to breach his chest wall.

His lungs weren't compromised. He could still breathe.

"Got some crush damage here, Hollywood," she told him matter-of-factly. "You feel any sharp pains?"

The kid's eyes were almost as round as his mouth, and he picked up his head, trying to see over the rolled up tee shirt. "Only when something – ahh, touches me. I don't know what happened. Right leg just gave out."

Jack dragged Mac's vest over, and inspected the interior. Whatever had hit him – or whatever he'd hit – when he'd been bouncing around inside the helo, it had snapped his lower ballistic armor plate in half. Would have been a hell of a blow. He was amazed the tech was moving at all.

"How's the leg feel now?"

Mac tried to catch his breath. "Uh . . . pins and needles. Like it's asleep. It's, ah, nerve pain." He managed to drag his head up far enough to catch a glimpse of the damage, and his eyes got wider, if possible, before he dropped back to the sand. "That's, uh, that's not good."

"No, it's not," Smiley agreed, "but you've been running around like a moron since the crash and you're not dead. That means this bleed is manageable, and it'll slow as long as we keep you still and keep your heart rate down."

Jack tried to fish out the important information there. He needed to be still. That meant no more setting bombs, no more scaling cliffs. No more walking, even across flat surfaces if they could avoid it.

No more retreats. Not without some way to carry him, and everything they could have used to do that had just been blown sky high.

Jack gave his bomb nerd a full beam Dalton grin. "Ooh, sittin' still. That's gotta be about your least favorite thing."

Mac tried to scoff. "There are a . . . a few things I like less." His legs were already beginning to shift restlessly. "Actually . . . uh . . . it's starting to feel a little better."

"Lying flat took some of the pressure off the nerves," the lieutenant told him, rolling his shirt back down. "Stay put, and try to stay calm. Ramarao and I can handle the rest of the prep, and then we'll help you back to camp."

Mac swallowed, then nodded, closing his eyes against the sun. Jack put a hand on his shoulder, high enough that he knew it wouldn't hurt him, and gave him a little squeeze. "Guess I need to go find us a place to hole up. Be back before you know it."

Smiley hooked a finger at Jack, and he obediently followed her to her pack, where she produced Ramallama's paper map. "Rest of the squad's with Adams sitting under a big rock about two hundred meters due east." Then she grabbed her radio. "Sweeper Four, I need an assist at the bridge, over."

She didn't even wait for the affirm, and dropped her voice. "That injury's bad news. There's nothing we can do for internal bleeding out here. And given the size of that bruise, Mac's lost almost as much blood as Higgins." She glanced over Jack's shoulder, presumably towards MacGyver. "And speaking of shit we didn't need today, Adams didn't paint me a pretty picture. What am I really looking at?"

Jack tried to pull his focus back to the larger issue. The kid was in trouble, but the truth was he was liable to get shot before he could bleed to death. They had zero intel on enemy numbers. They sure as hell hadn't been shy with the mortars or RPGs, which made Jack think they either had plenty, or they _really_ needed them dead. And with so many child soldiers . . .

"I think we're lookin' at a training camp. No way to know how big without headin' over and takin' a gander." Jack wasn't currently kitted for recon, but he could at the very least stay behind and radio in enemy numbers and positions. Not that Smiley could do much with the intel, even if she had it.

They needed some goddamn air support and an evac.

"No," the lieutenant said immediately. "I need you here. Only other gunner is Adams, and we're three men down now."

"Three?" Jack's voice was sharp.

"Ramarao's basically blind. He has to hold his eyes open to see."

Jack blinked. "And you're gonna let him set explosives?"

The look he got was blistering enough to strip the paint off the wall of a honeymoon hotel. "Dalton, we're EOD. Every member of this unit can literally set charges with their eyes closed."

A quiet snicker emanated from Mac's general direction.

"Shut it," Jack called over his shoulder, then focused back on Smiley. "Fair enough. You keep slowin' 'em down, I'll find us a nice little hidey hole, and we'll get that radio up and workin'."

He found the rest area Adams had chosen easily enough – and passed Ramallama on the way. He was actually holding his right eye open with his fingers, and his face was significantly more swollen than it had been even an hour ago. Jaw was definitely broken; it was gonna suck trying to get an MRE into him. Higgins was in the deepest part of the shadows, on his back with his legs up on packs, and he looked like he was asleep. Morphine and heat would do that, but seeing as the airman was probably down a pint or two of blood, they'd have to keep an eye on him.

They were going to have to treat Mac for shock, too, just as soon as Smiley and Ramallama could get him back here.

Adams started to get to his feet, but Jack waved him down. "Stay put. I'm gonna check out the neighborhood. You get any action, you call me."

-M-

So this was actually a suggestion from **BookNeed007** originally intended to be a Turkey Day Trimmings – the first time Mac got hurt, and Jack learned how to deal with an injured MacGyver. Simple enough, right? I envisioned a helicopter crash, Mac getting to make all kinds of fun stuff out of a crashed helicopter, Jack learning how the kid dealt with pain and problem-solving when he was impaired . . .

Yeah. And then I realized we'd need a pilot, and it probably wouldn't just be Jack, Mac and a pilot in a bird so there was a team, and suddenly it was sixty pages, our boys were surrounded, I would have straight up killed Mac if not for the timely medical advice of one **Gib**. Most of the rest of this is written, but I realized it was way the hell too long to post as a single chapter, so I decided that it would be a standalone story, but could easily have happened in the Turkey Day universe.


	2. Chapter 2

Standard disclaimers apply. I don't own any of these characters, please don't sue.

 **TOC** – Tactical Operations Center. **FAK** – First Aid Kit. **CAS Evac** – Casualty evacuation. **VHF** and **UHF** – types of radio. **SWAG** – Scientific Wild Ass Guess. **LZ** – Landing Zone.

-M-

Jack Dalton would be the first to admit that he wasn't a particularly book learned individual. He could read a topography map because someone had taught him how, and there was a handy key that told you what was what. The map did not, however, show anything below the surface. It was there to give altitude indicators to aircraft and ground troops, and help them plot courses for vehicles.

But it also showed him how the rocks lay. And you didn't grow up in the great state of Texas without learning a little bit about rocks. You sure as hell didn't operate in a country like Afghanistan without learning a whole lot more.

It wasn't an exact science, but he got a hole in two.

Dalton came at the opening into the sun, so he didn't cast a shadow, and he bounced a pebble into the entrance of the little cave from above, as if he was standing on top of the rocks. Then he hunkered down and waited.

Nothing happened.

A second pebble got him about the same response as the first, and Jack considered using one of his two flash bangs. It would leave him just one, and as anyone who'd gone through Basic knew, 'one was none'. On the other hand, if he walked into that nook and got shot all to pieces, one woulda been plenty.

He sat outside a little longer, listening, but he didn't hear a damn thing. Not so much as a whisper of fabric. Jack counted it down in his head, then rolled in, trying to get his silhouette the hell out of the opening as soon as possible.

It was dark, a little cooler than he expected, and _definitely_ on someone's radar.

His tac light showed a nice little cooking fire ring, complete with a piece of radiator grill as a cook stand and a small tea kettle, dry and quite cold. There was a teacup set off to the side, as well as a one-man sleeping mat and a small pile of dried up camel shit for fuel. No weapons, no visible brass on the floor.

Jack pushed further into the cave, finding a second chamber that contained another couple handwoven bags of dung, and an empty chocolate bar wrapper, licked clean. There was air coming through a very small aperture, the cave obviously linked to a larger structure, but it was way too small for even a kid to crawl through. There didn't seem to be any other way to access the system from these two little rooms. 

Jack left it exactly as he had found it, and spent the next twenty minutes trying to find another way into the cave system. When his radio crackled, it legitimately startled him.

"Sweeper Sweeper, bridgework is complete. Rally to Sweeper Three, over."

Jack took a different route back, still trying to find another way into the caves, and came up empty. By the time he'd made it back to Adams, the rest of Sweeper was gathered in the shade. Smiley was beside Ramallama and both of them were bent over a couple pieces of paper. The lieutenant glanced up, then held up one finger.

Smiley had situated Mac next to Higgins, feet up, but in typical MacGyver fashion, the damn kid had his head propped up on his own pack, and he had his swiss army knife in hand, fiddling with the radio pack. He was wearing his concentrating frown.

Dalton stared at him a moment, then shook his head, unclipped the Barrett, and squatted next to him, settling back against the rocks. Mac didn't acknowledge him other than a slight turn of his head – but not his eyes – and kept working.

Jack reached up to his left shoulder, dug out the camelbak mouthpiece, and took a long drag.

"You . . . unnerstand that gonk?"

Jack waited a beat, but Mac didn't answer, so Jack craned his head around and saw that Higgins was awake and looking at them.

Dalton thumbed towards the kid. "He does. Regular gonkulator."

A slight twitch of the frown told him Mac knew enough Air Force speak to understand what 'gonk' was. It was any tech the Air Force didn't understand. And a pilot should sure as hell understand how a radio worked.

"It's not the radio that's the problem," Mac finally answered, grimacing as he drove a screw into a hole that looked a little too small for it. "Power supply's the issue now."

Power. Yeah, that'd be a problem. "I take it we can't just . . . take all the batteries outta these," and Jack tapped his radio, "an', I dunno, tape 'em all together or something to make one big one?"

The frown turned up a little, and this time he got the eyebrows engaged too. "No, Jack, we can't just . . . make one big one." Then he sighed, and let his head fall back against his pack pillow for a second. "I mean, yes, we can, but it won't be nearly big enough, and that plan has the same problem mine does. So unless you have a soldering iron in your kit . . ."

He trailed off, then glanced at Jack. And he had The Look.

Jack lifted his chin a little. "Oh no you don't. You're about to ask me for somethin' and I'm not gonna get it back-"

Mac _very_ carefully set his multi-tool in the sand, instead of on his chest, and even had the gall to hold out the hand. "I am, and you _will_ get it back. Can I have the scope off your rifle?"

"You want . . . you want the scope off my rifle," Jack repeated flatly.

Mac nodded, then winced, which made Jack feel like an ass for the second time that day. "Yeah. I'd use the lens on your watch, but what I'm planning to do would cook the photoluminescence and it'd be useless after that-"

"Oh, so let's trash the optics instead?" He didn't just want the scope. He wanted to take it apart.

 _Of course_ he wanted to take it apart.

The kid's eyes closed for a moment, and Jack decided it wasn't worth arguing over. "Alright, fine, but playin' the injured card's low, even for you." A sniper without optics wasn't much of a sniper, and the one is none rule sadly didn't apply to your primary weapon.

But a single sniper was not going to save them, whereas a single radio might could do the trick.

Jack released the thumb screws and took the optics off the rail. "Just got her zeroed back in too," he grumbled, passing the narrow, surprisingly heavy cylinder to Mac, and he wasn't sure if the relief he saw in Mac's eyes was because he didn't have to keep arguing, or because he finally had the tool he needed to do whatever it was he was going to do.

Jack hissed on Mac's behalf when the kid curled his legs off the pack and rolled to a sitting position. "Hey, dude, what happened to sittin' still –"

"I need the sun." He tried to pick up the radio battery pack but Jack beat him to it, and other than a resigned – and maybe slightly grateful – look, Mac let him carry it. He seemed relatively steady on his feet, and true to his word, Mac sat down on a rock as soon as he was in full sun, squinting up at the sky a moment before he changed his position slightly. Jack set the pack down in front of him, and Mac nodded in thanks, then promptly pried the lens off the front of the scope.

Jack very carefully didn't throttle him. "Gonna toast some ants?"

". . . yeah. Kinda." He pulled the lens off the other side of the scope, then gave him a weak smile and handed the rest of the cylinder back to him. Jack gave him a dark look and snatched it out of his hand.

The kid stacked the lens together, then held them up in the sun, studying the white light on the sand. He flipped one of them around, which significantly tightened the dot of sunlight, and then he rotated one of them, which made it slightly brighter. Then he reached for his vest – that he wasn't wearing.

Mac sighed. It sounded exhausted. "Jack, can you grab the electrical tape out of my vest?"

Jack did as he was instructed, and started the edge so Mac could manipulate it without letting go of the lenses. MacGyver carefully joined the two lenses, then used his teeth to rip the tape.

"Dalton!"

Jack wasn't even sure Mac noticed that he walked away, and the kid bent painfully over the battery pack with the world's most primitive soldering iron.

Smiley had taken her feet and offered him a piece of paper. It was a hand drawn map, showing him where they'd stashed all the explosives, and what kind they were. They'd taken them well beyond the bridge, and put a few outliers where paths were convenient but not necessarily in their direction, just to create doubt. By the time Dalton figured out what he was looking at and started folding it to tuck it into his vest, Smiley's attention had turned to Mac. "How's he doing?"

"Kid's a damn wizard. If the radio can be fixed, he'll fix it."

She nodded. "Yeah, I know. We barely even let the vendor touch our TALONs anymore." Then she frowned. "I don't want to make him run. Did you find anyplace we can lay low, or at least stash MacGyver and Higgins?"

"Yes and no." Mac hadn't changed positions, and Jack sighed, pulled off his eye protection, and rubbed his eyes vigorously. "Found a cave. It's connected to a whole system, never did find another way in. Problem is, someone's set up a nice little picnic spot there."

"So they know about it." It wasn't a question.

Jack shrugged, and replaced the glasses. "Someone does. Hasn't been used in a while. Doesn't look like a stocked outpost, more like a lookout station. Long as we stayed quiet and laid a false trail for anyone that gets past your little minefield, might get us through the night."

Smiley's expression was grim. "And then?"

Jack blew out his cheeks. "Then, if they got the manpower, they'll send a group the long way around and pin us between 'em. After that, it's hide and seek."

"Let's say Hollywood can't unfuck the radio."

He glanced at his watch. "Well, we were supposed to land around this time, so with any luck, in a couple hours someone with an actual brain'll realize we didn't. Sooner if someone else needed that bird. They'll try to get satellite, may or may not spot the crash site, and then send out a team and some air support. It'll be a grid search after that. Good news is, us being this high, even UHF'll get us in touch with the pilots if the birds are close enough. They'll be squawking on our operating freq."

The way Jack saw it, they had one option now. Stow the injured and have the able-bodied lead the Tallies on a wild goose chase. Once they were penned in well and good, it was gonna turn into the Alamo. They might be able to blast their way into the rest of that cave system, and pop up outside the enemy's perimeter.

Or, their enemy might do exactly the same.

"Okay. Let's get some grub, hydrate, and see what happens with the radio. If MacGyver or Higgins deteriorate much more, we'll have to move."

Jack ended up pulling a little bit of a rat fuck by perusing the MREs before Smiley actually told anyone it was chow time. He was hoping for clam chowder, but all he could find was cigarette soup – otherwise known as onion soup, which looked a lot like adding water to the contents of an ashtray. It wasn't fabulous, but at least Ramallama could drink it. He also pulled some mashed potatoes out of a chicken entrée and resigned himself to the fact that he was probably going to have to eat the rest of it, since the garlic mashed potato side was the only thing that made it edible.

Mac passed those on to Smiley – her engineer, her job – and grabbed a spaghetti and meatballs for Mac. The kid only budged when the sun moved, having chased him to another rock, and his bandana was finally starting to show the sweat.

"Hey Mac."

The blond didn't respond, scowling at the battery pack, and Jack watched silently a moment as a thin thread of smoke rose from a green wire.

"I _know_ ," Mac growled suddenly. "I'm working as fast as I can, and bugging me every ten seconds is not going to make this go any faster."

Jack blinked, a little taken aback. "Whoa, now, hoss, why don't you wipe off that war paint. I'm just here to offer ya your very favorite Meal Rejected by Ethiopians."

The blond sucked in what he probably considered a deep breath, not taking his eyes off the board he was frying.

Jack decided to take a seat and shoved his chicken into the heating sleeve, letting it do its thing. Pain always turned him off his feed, and he wasn't going to insist that Mac eat the whole thing, but they needed to get fluids and sugar into him, if nothing else. Sitting up was clearly causing him pain; his right leg was trembling though his hands were perfectly steady.

"Besides, you can take a breather. Ain't heard one peep from that minefield, and it'll take 'em the rest of the day to go around."

Mac's scowl deepened. "Sorry. I'm just . . . not in the mood for another "EODs are so slow" diatribe."

"Hell, brother, why would I give you one of those now? You and Smiley whipped through that land bridge," Jack pointed out, and they settled back into a slightly less hostile silence.

At some point the green wire melted enough for Mac's purposes, and the blond used the can opener attachment on his knife to mash it into another one. He shook out the hand that had been holding the lenses, and then shakily rubbed his eyes.

Okay. Enough was enough. "Alright, Mac, come on back to the shade and let's just take a break. You're no good to anyone wearin' yourself out."

"That's the point!" he snapped, finally looking at Jack. He was more pale now than before, and sweat beaded on his upper lip. "We need this radio to work, or we can't call in our coordinates. It could be days before we get found in a grid search. I _have_ to get this done before I'm – I'm just dead weight-"

So this was what the kid looked like when he was close to panicking. Jack had never actually seen him do it before. And given the scrapes they'd gotten into, that was saying something. The attitude change had started right after Mac realized he was actually injured, not just banged up, and Jack wondered if he was legitimately scared. "How's about you don't go tossin' that word around so lightly-"

"You give this spiel to the pilot?" It was quieter, and bitter.

Jack felt his eyebrows crawl upward. "Bud, do you and me got a problem?"

Mac finally looked away, back at the battery pack, and a little bit of the anger and frustration melted into distress. "Jack – it's . . . it's _damaged_. Even _if_ I can bypass the broken board, the battery cells themselves took a hit. I don't know how much signal strength you'll have, even if I get it working –"

"Angus." He said it very gently.

Mac stopped mid-word, apparently surprised, and Jack pinned him with his eyes. "Chief, the radio workin' or not workin' is not _on you_. Okay? You're not the one who fucked it up. We're all in this together, and we're gonna get out of it together, with or without that hunk'a junk."

Mac's eyes slid past Jack, toward the rest of Sweeper. ". . . Jack, if I can't get the radio working, the odds of everyone surviving to evac–"

"And if you don't get smarter about the way you're doin' it, what are the odds of _you_ survivin' to evac? You done that math yet, brainiac?"

Something crossed those blue eyes then, something calculating, and Jack realized with a lurch that Mac _hadn't_ done that math. Not until he just told him to.

Well, shit. "Mac, you are _bleedin'_. If it was any of the rest of us, you'd tie it off and tell us to stop wrigglin' around. Now eat your own damn dog food – or whatever the hell you can choke down from that bag nasty – and lay your ass on the ground." Jack got to his feet, and stepped around to the other side of him, so that Mac was sitting in his shadow. "Shove over."

The annoyed look was back, masking something else. "I can't work on my back –"

"Why the hell not? Gimme that thing." He snatched the taped lenses out of Mac's left hand, not at all pleased at how easy it was. "I been paintin' targets since you were eatin' paste in the first grade. Think I can point a laser where you tell me."

Mac's mouth snapped open to retort – and then closed with a little click. It took another couple seconds of silence, but the tech finally slid off the rock, and Jack took his place, with the battery pack between his feet. His shadow wasn't long enough to cover the kid, but at least it got his face, and Mac propped his head up on the rock so he could still see what was going on.

The kid's tone was still clipped, but the instructions were clear enough, and Jack held the beam where he was directed, forcing down chicken in snot sauce with his other hand. He was pleasantly surprised to find a consolation prize in the bag – cherry-blueberry cobbler. As far as MRE desserts went, that, the maple muffin top, and the fudge brownie tied for things that were legitimately tasty enough to actually pay money for back stateside.

Jack passed it blindly down to his left. He'd heard Mac swallow a little water, but the MRE had been set beside him and otherwise not touched. When the dessert pouch wasn't taken from his hand, Jack shook it vigorously.

"Look, man, I know you're in pain, but you needa eat somethin', or those painkillers Smiley's givin' ya are gonna tear you up."

The pouch was eventually accepted. "Only thing I can take is Tylenol. The rest are NSAIDs – blood thinners."

Jack was pretty sure morphine wasn't, or they wouldn't hand it out like candy to men who were likely to get shot. But he didn't push it; Mac would fight them on anything he thought would hamper his ability to think clearly.

Jack offered his eating utensil. "Bud, you got a little more than a headache goin' there."

Mac didn't say anything else, but eventually the pouch was pulled open, and beneath Jack's little beam of sunlight, a thin little line of smoke swirled up from a thick black cable.

"Sit on that for a while. If it catches fire, blow it out."

The shade gradually crept towards them, inching up the kid's legs, then his chest, and Jack was beginning to think they were going to have to up and move again before his partner rolled to his side and mashed down on the joint of the black wire and a metal knob with his knife. "Ow, Jack, move the beam-"

"Right, sorry-"

Mac used his right elbow to drag himself a little closer to the box, fanning the smoke away with his left, and then the kid let loose with a blistering string of words Jack had never heard him use before, and slumped back to the sand. His lips were pulled thin, whether in anger or pain Jack couldn't tell.

"Try it, but do it fast. I just cracked the damn plate, it's gonna start leaking-"

Jack grabbed the battery pack, hauling it back to the radio kit, and had it all hooked together in less than thirty seconds. Technically Ramallama was their com officer, but he wasn't going to sweat duties and manning a backpack radio had become muscle memory more than a decade ago. He dialed in the right frequency and grabbed the headset.

"Sweeper One Six, this is Sweeper Six, do you copy, over."

The rest of the team had looked up the second he'd dragged the battery pack back over, and Smiley came to crouch by the backpack. Dalton gave the TOC a five second count to come back.

Nothing happened.

"Sweeper One Six, this is Sweeper Six, nothing heard. How copy, over."

The only thing he was pickin' up on the headset was the usual static of random shit bouncing off the atmosphere. Jack frowned, and flipped open the pack flap, running his finger down the laminated list there to find the emergency frequency for the region.

"-eeper Six, you are weak and in-zzrt-mittent, say again, over."

He released a breath he hadn't known he was holding, and pulled off the headset so Smiley could hear. Dalton rattled off their coordinates, near as he could calculate them from Ramallama's map. It took three tries before he finally got back the two magical words they all needed to hear.

"-ood copy, Sweeper Six. What's your crrkt-ation, over."

Smiley took the headset and he let her, heading back to Mac. His face was in sun, now that his shadow-maker was gone, and his eyes were closed, but his expression was the very picture of relief.

Jack retook the rock, to shade him as much as to pick up the trash and tools. They could both hear the lieutenant calling in a dustoff.

"It's gonna take 'em a couple hours to get here." Which was a hell of a lot better than a couple days. "Think it's about time we gave ya the good stuff and found better cover."

Mac didn't say anything either way, though he adjusted his position with a grimace. Jack kept one eye on him while he unwound the tape from the lenses, then pulled the scope cylinder from his vest. The optics' lenses were made to be removed, and they were keyed, so it wasn't difficult to figure out how to reassemble it. Once done, Jack picked out a random northern ridge and peered through it to make sure he'd gotten it right.

And found himself staring at a person.

It was a local, and he had a rifle hanging from his back. Couldn't have been older than fifteen. He wasn't looking their way; he seemed to be picking a route along the ridge west of the land bridge.

Trying to find a way around.

"Good luck with that, pal," Jack muttered, and scanned the ridge. There was another youth trailing him, about thirty meters back, doing the same thing.

That they didn't know the lay of the land surprised him. If this was a training center, these ridges would be their stomping grounds. They'd know every inch of the place for miles around, running scenarios, practicing maneuvers. It could be they were new recruits, or not terribly interested in getting blown to pieces and using their 'initiative' to avoid the situation –

Or they could be getting into position as overwatch to call in the enemy's location.

Jack took the scope away from his face, and wasn't surprised to see Mac had his eyes open, watching him.

"What do you see?"

Jack frowned. "Break time's over. We need to get movin'."

It turned out Mac's SWAG of usable radio life was depressingly accurate. It gave out before they actually got confirmation of incoming support, but Jack was highly confident losing communication with the TOC would speed things along, not slow them down. Smiley used their empty MRE containers to line the radio pack so they wouldn't leave a trail of battery acid, and Sweeper did a decent job of cleaning up after themselves. Adams woke Higgins when it was time to move out, and Jack watched Smiley flatly ignore MacGyver's protests, and pull an auto-inject pen out of the kit.

Mac actually caught her hands to stop her, his expression urgent and even a little frantic, and Jack stepped closer.

"-a vasodilator, it'll open up the blood vessels. If the bleed's stopped, it could start up again, or get worse."

The lieutenant hesitated. "We treat trauma victims with this stuff every day, MacGyver-"

The blond nodded, not taking his eyes off her hands. "If you can control the bleeding, like with Higgins, it's fine. You can't give me that. Trust me, I wish you could." He didn't relax until she pulled back to the kit, and after a few seconds he shook his head again. "Fentanyl too. Same problem."

Smiley huffed out a sigh. "Listen, Mac, that's all we've got. I can't give you any more tylenol, not for a couple hours."

The tech nodded, still watching her warily, and she glanced up at Jack. "How far is this cave?"

He knew he was frowning at the tech, because Mac gave him one of his dead set stubborn looks. "'Bout two and a half klicks, and we got a couple hills in there. Dude, this is gonna be a big ol' pile of suck. You sure about this?"

Mac nodded shortly. "About the drugs? Yeah, I'm sure." He grimaced, and then pushed himself into a more upright sitting position. "I can make it."

Smiley gave him another long look, then pulled the kit closed. "You stick to me, Hollywood, and you tell me the _second_ you need a break, you copy?"

Whether he agreed or not, Smiley enforced her will. She divided them up on the trail, putting Adams and Higgins in the lead. She followed, between MacGyver and Ramarao, and Jack brought up the rear. They kept to as much cover as possible, accommodating the wounded where they could, and they very nearly made it.

It was Mac's right leg that gave again, and Smiley caught him by the belt and managed to keep him on his feet. Jack was beside him in two strides and grabbed his right arm. He didn't try to pull it up over his shoulder; anything that stretched out Mac's chest was gonna be bad news for whatever was torn up in there. Mac was breathing hard, but he never cried out, not even when his left leg wobbled on him, and Jack had to change his grip, snagging the back of his trousers.

By the time they made it down the little slope that hid the cave entrance, he and Smiley were basically carrying Mac by the seat of his pants. They kept him upright as Adams cleared the cave – which was thankfully just as empty as it had been before, seemingly untouched.

"Let's put 'em in the back. That way they only gotta move once." If the Tallies had another entrance into that cave system and blew out that back wall, whether Higgins and Mac were in the front chamber or the rear wouldn't make much difference.

Adams half-supported, half-dragged Higgins into the cave, and Jack went ahead and ducked down, helping Mac get his legs up over the small ledge before catching him around the waist as Smiley sort of lowered him in. Together they got him into the second chamber, right next to Higgins and tucked out of direct line of sight of the main chamber.

It was just as chilly as Jack remembered, and while Adams propped Higgins' legs up on a pack, Jack wriggled out of his, pawing through it for his jacket. It was significantly bigger than Mac's, and he ever so carefully draped it over the tech, trying to avoid putting any of the weight of the fabric on the kid's middle. Mac's eyes were screwed shut and he was trying hard to catch his breath.

"Hang in there, bud. You're gonna be fine."

MacGyver gave him a tight nod, obviously not trusting his voice, and Jack pulled back to the entrance of the cave, waiting for the rest of Sweeper to get situated.

It didn't take long. Smiley popped back out into the sun, squinting back the way they'd come. "What's the word, Dalton?"

He had a plan, but he didn't like it. "There's somethin' I wanna check out. I'll clean up our trail, make a new one. Gimme an hour. Those caves might fuck with our radios, so leave someone near the door in case I get lonely."

She didn't bat an eye, turning back towards the cave. "Adams, we're gonna take a walk. Stay near the entrance and monitor coms."

Jack raised an eyebrow as the lieutenant turned, making sure the M9 was snug in her holster.

"I wasn't plannin' on gettin' _that_ lonely."

She gave him an unimpressed look. "I'm going to set us up a doorbell, if that's okay with you."

Doorbell was probably a good idea. "Yes ma'am."

Jack took them back up the path they'd just come, doing what he could to cover the evidence of their passing. The 'doorbell' Smiley set up was clearly meant to be non-lethal, just loud, and it didn't take her long. The scope was back on the Barrett but not zeroed in, and Jack found a relatively good position and tried to find those two kids he'd spotted earlier.

There was no sign of them, and Jack's spidey sense started tingling.

He was making his second pass along the ridge when he heard the louie approaching from behind. "Got anything?"

She timed the question perfectly; the sound of an explosion echoed across the ridge.

They didn't have line of sight back to the land bridge, and Jack gave the northwest ridge another quick scan. Those two lookouts were either already in position, or they'd pulled back to their companions trying to find a way across the minefield.

Unsuccessfully, from the sound of things.

What he wanted to do now was get spotted, preferably in an area as far from their actual position as possible. What he didn't want to do was make the lieutenant sniper bait.

"How's about I walk you back. Neighborhood can get a little rough after dark."

She was also watching the north ridge, and her reply was distracted. "Such a gentleman."

Dalton still felt uneasy, even as they picked their careful way back to the cave, and he kept as many rocks between them and that northwest ridge as possible. Once they were in sight of the cave, he split off, continuing southwest for about two kilometers. He didn't make the trail _too_ obvious, but he did leave a full bootprint here and there, and once he felt like he'd put enough distance between him and the rest of Sweeper, Jack climbed to the top of the nearest ridge, found a position he liked, and settled in.

If he was remembering Ramallama's map correctly, one of the two closest by-passes the Tallies could take around the land bridge was right over the cliff, and he was right. More vehicle tracks. There were no vehicles on it currently, and he zeroed the scope as much as he could, then picked out a small rock, about the size of a fist.

He squeezed off a round, adjusted accordingly, and waited.

He didn't have to wait long.

It was horses, this time, instead of trucks. Both the men were fully grown, and both were carrying mortar tubes. He waited until they were almost directly below before he sighted the man at the rear. Targets on horses were always a little trickier, and he didn't want to hurt the animal – not like it had much of a choice which side it was on.

And he was counting on it to run on back to the barn and let everyone know where the big bad sniper was set up.

Jack took both the men quickly, and he actually had to spend a round kicking up dust before either of the horses would leave their fallen riders. Once a bullet mimicked a snake in the sand, that was all she wrote, and Jack watched the two Arabians sprint back in the direction they'd come, tails like banners in the breeze.

He contemplated heading down and grabbing one of the mortar tubes, just in case, but that nagging feel hadn't left, and Jack gave the landscape a good hard look before he backed carefully down the slope. He took an extremely roundabout path back to the cave, and was pleased to see that Adams had been bright enough to find himself a little shelter outside it, watching the northern approach.

The private nodded to him, and Jack nodded back, then ducked into the cool darkness of the cave. Ramallama was on his back with a rock resting against the side of his face – closest thing to an icepack he was gonna find. Smiley was making use of one of the MRE heaters to warm the tea kettle, and she handed a steaming teacup up to Jack as he passed.

"See if you can get some of this into Hollywood."

It smelled like the spiced tea that was ubiquitous for the region - there must have been a tin of it somewhere in the cave. Jack moved into the second chamber, which was lit with one of the LED lanterns from the helo's egress kit. Higgins and Mac were side by side, both with their legs elevated, and both of them seemed to be asleep.

It was a trick of the light, but Jack didn't see a trained pilot and an ordinance technician. He saw two nineteen year olds, their dirt-streaked faces greasy with pain. On closer inspection, he could see MacGyver was shivering a little, and his eyes were moving restlessly under his lids.

"Hey, kid. You 'wake?"

Jack pulled the rifle sling over his head, leaning the Barrett against the cave wall, and sat down Indian style next to Mac. His eyes had half opened, and in the dim his pupils were huge.

Jack had gotten hit in the solar plexus more times than he could count. Every time, it knocked the wind out of him. There was a nerve cluster right there, and a little thing called your diaphragm, which was kinda important for breathing. A solid strike was enough to take down a grown ass Delta, and Jack couldn't imagine what it must feel like to have it torn up. Plus all that blood, if it couldn't find a place to drain, was just gonna keep pushing on that nerve cluster.

He could only hope the hike to the cave hadn't done more damage. He sure as hell wasn't going to start peeling the kids' clothes off to see. Nothing he could do about it anyway.

"C'mon, bud. Got some of that tea ya like."

Mac squinted a little, then turned his face away from both Jack and the lantern. "Feel sick," he mumbled.

"Yeah, kiddo, I know." If the pain and the damage itself wasn't causing that, blood loss certainly would.

"I don' want it." Mac's eyes opened again, looking at the man bundled up next to him. A pained expression crossed his face, and he turned back, squinting again at the light from the lantern, then started to push himself into a sitting position.

"Whoa-"

Mac didn't get more than his head off his pack before he bit down on a yell, and Jack watched him helplessly as he sank back to the cave floor and fought with the pain. The blue eyes finally opened again, restless but somehow not alert, and Mac tried to roll to his side. Jack put a hand on his shoulder and gently pushed him down.

"Whoa now. Just where the hell you off to?"

"The radio," Mac ground out, pulling ineffectually at Jack's wrist. "Gotta fix – the radio-"

"You already did, bud. Remember?" Mac stared up at him, sucking down air, and Jack gave him an easy smile. "You got it up and workin'. Cavalry's comin', be here before you know it. You did good, kid. Now how about you just lie back and try a sip of this tea. It'll settle your stomach."

That probably wasn't true, but his bomb nerd didn't look like he was firing on all cylinders at the moment and either way, arguing about whether cinnamon had natural anti-nausea properties was better than letting him crawl all over the cave looking for the now fully fucked radio pack. Jack made a mental note to make sure it was tucked safely out of his sight.

Mac's hand was still on his wrist, his fingers like ice, and as soon as he started to catch his breath, Jack tipped the cup to his lips. Whether the kid wanted it or not, he choked down a mouthful, but then he made a face, and turned back towards Higgins. "'S too hot."

"That's kinda the point. Gotta warm you up a little bit."

He managed to get about half the cup into his tech, but every sip was a fight, and pretty much as soon as Mac stopped shivering Jack called it good enough. Eventually he seemed to drift off into an uneasy, dazed sleep and Jack let him. He returned the cup to Smiley, who dumped the remaining liquid back into the tea kettle. Jack raised an eyebrow and helped himself to the M4 he'd given Ramallama, checking the weapon before he set it back down at the cave entrance.

"Kinda hopin' we get outta here before you have time to reheat that stuff."

The lieutenant nodded, then rubbed her eyes wearily. "It'd be nice."

But the afternoon drug on with no further radio contact. Adams reported hearing a few more blasts from their minefield, but then it went quiet and stayed that way. Jack never lost that slight unease, and eventually he couldn't take it anymore and relieved Adams just so he could get out of the cave and at least try to pin it down. There was no motion from the north, and located where they were, halfway down a slope, he couldn't see dust or anything else indicating movement in the landscape around them.

The first evening stars blinked in the deepening sky before his radio finally crackled to life.

"Sweeper Sweeper, this is Dragon One, do you copy, over."

Jack chucked a rock at the cave entrance, just in case the broadcast hadn't made it in there, and grabbed his radio.

"Dragon One, this is Sweeper Six, good copy, sure did take your sweet time, over."

Dragon wasn't a callsign he recognized, and Jack's unease ticked up another notch as Adams stuck his head out. Jack pointed to his earpiece, and Adams gave him the OK sign and ducked back into the cave.

"Sweeper Sweeper, gimme a sitrep, over."

Smiley and Adams exited the cave, but Jack didn't wait for the lieutenant. "Dragon One, we are two men down, three men wounded, one critical. No VHF capability. Enemy contact confirmed north north-west and west of our last transmitted coordinates. Tell me you're our evac, over."

Dragon didn't immediately respond, and Jack locked eyes with Smiley. Something was definitely up.

He watched her grab her radio. "Dragon One, this is Sweeper Actual. Where's my goddamn dustoff, over."

"Stand by, Sweeper."

Dalton turned and watched the south horizon. He saw it long before he heard it, the jet was subsonic and would be overhead in forty seconds. There was a faint dot trailing, too fast and high to be a helo.

In fact, it looked like a pair of A10s. Lotta firepower for a couple dozen insurgents, even ones with anti-aircraft capabilities.

"Sweeper, we've got two birds headed to your coordinates, pop smoke, over."

Smiley looked like she was going to respond, and Jack shook his head at her sharply. Not a chance. "Negative on the smoke, Dragon One, unable to mark position. We can see your birds, over."

He abandoned the rock he was using as cover and jogged over to the cave entrance. "We got A10s comin' in, and I don't think they're here just to clear an LZ." It was true they were way north of Kabul and needed aircraft with a decent range, but those A10s looked like they were lining up for a bombing run. And he sure as hell wasn't going to use a smoke grenade to mark their position and invite the Tallies in for tea if they had a real fight on their hands.

"Sweeper Sweeper, be advised, AO is too hot for evac. You're right in the middle of a charlie foxtrot. We have two inbound support units, callsigns Keystone and Hammer, eight klicks south of your position. Once foothold is secure, they'll direct you to the LZ for evac. How copy, over."

Smiley's mouth was set in a grim line. "Dragon One, good copy, two support units designated Keystone and Hammer will secure an LZ for dustoff. Our wounded will not make eight klicks, you gotta get closer than that, over."

"Good copy, Sweeper, we'll get as close as we can. Air support's cleared to engage hostiles in your area. Get your heads down or pop smoke, AO's about to get lit up, how copy, over."

"Good copy, Dragon. Your first bird just passed us, over."

The first jet sailed overhead, not quite low enough for a gun run but close, and the trailing bird was about sixty seconds behind. Jack grabbed his radio.

"Dragon One, second bird is fifty seconds out. Anything north of my mark is fair game, over."

The radio crackled with a new voice. "Sweeper Sweeper, this is Blue Two, good copy, forty-five seconds out. Waiting for your mark, over."

Hallelujah. They had decent pilots.

Smiley let him count it down, and Jack watched the second A10 approach. "Blue Two, good line. You are eight seconds out . . . fiver . . . three . . . mark."

He couldn't even hear himself over the roar of the engine, but the radio was true, because the jet pulled out of the run and banked hard east.

"Dragon, Blue Two, I have friendlies marked, over."

"Blue One Blue Two, anything north northwest and west of us is confirmed hostile. Let it rain, fellas." Jack wasn't even finished broadcasting before he gestured for Adams and Smiley to back it up. Those jets were carrying cluster bombs, and they didn't want to be anywhere _near_ out in the open when they hit the ground.

"Pull everything to the rear chamber." If the opening was compromised, they could still try to blow out that back wall and find another exit.

When the first bombs hit, Jack wasn't entirely sure that second pilot had accurately marked them. It seemed like the rumbling was coming from all around them, and a puff of cold air shot through the small hole in the back wall with a sharp whistle. For some reason, Jack expected the light to flicker, but the LED lantern was unaffected, and both Higgins and Mac cracked open wild, disoriented eyes.

"Easy, guys. You're okay." Smiley moved so she was at their feet, face illuminated clearly by the lantern. Though she focused on the two most injured men, her words were directed to all of Sweeper. "Air support's clearing us a path, and we'll all be home by morning."

Ramallama had settled against the back wall, and his right eye was a liquid slit in an otherwise immensely swollen face. Still, he pried open his broken jaw and spoke. "What did they mean, a charlie foxtrot out there? How many men are we talking?"

Jack was pretty sure even EOD knew that a 'charlie foxtrot' was the semi-polite way to refer to a clusterfuck. And if it hadn't been one before the A10s arrived, it sure as shit was one now. "They said satellite indicated a lot of activity. We suspected this could be a training camp. Guess we were right." Jack glanced at the lieutenant. "Think they pulled together a whole damn op in our honor."

It explained the callsigns he'd never heard of, and the sheer amount of time it had taken Camp KAIA or the FOB to deploy support. A quick reaction force should have been to them hours ago. Once they gave coordinates, someone must have requested satellite of the area, and they'd seen –

Well, they must have seen a hell of a lot of something. More vehicles, the Tallies sweeping south to cut them off, _something_. And enough of it to warrant the precision guided whoop-ass raining down above their heads. Much as it probably reassured the rest of Sweeper, Jack knew this wasn't all to rally to the defense of a downed EOD squad. Likely rescue was one of the objectives, but not the main.

The primary objective would be taking out the training camp, and stomping all the little roaches that came scuttlin' out. Rescuing them was secondary.

Jack's gaze slid of its own accord back to Mac. His tech's eyes were rolling around in their sockets, clearly searching for something.

Probably the goddamn radio. Kid had a one-track mind, and apparently when it was impaired he went full on stubborn. Higgins was holding it together a little better, but the co-pilot had stopped bleeding hours ago. Mac hadn't.

"Yeah, well, good, because these fuckers need to meet Jesus right away," Adams growled from his position in the opening of the two chambers. "Damn dirties are usin' kids."

A terrible thought occurred to Jack, and he shot Adams a warning look that the private didn't see, because Higgins chose that moment to pick up his head.

"M'not a kid," the airman slurred defensively, his voice as annoyed as MacGyver looked.

"Naw, man. School-aged, like freakin' fourteen years old. Musta seen half a dozen of 'em before that mortar hit and Dalton blew the bird." Adams finally caught the universal 'abort' gesture Jack was throwing at him, and he trailed off, but it was too late.

For a split second, Jack thought maybe Mac was still distracted with the word kid, or with Higgins wiggling around next to him. He stilled, eyes on the ceiling. But then realization crawled across his face in slow motion, so much like physical pain that Jack wasn't sure the rest of them even knew the difference.

Mac seemed to shrink into himself, and then he choked and curled onto his side, away from Higgins. The lieutenant was still at his feet and moved to his side in an instant, and the cave rattled with his ragged gasp. There wasn't room to go to him, and Jack settled for glaring at Adams as his tech gave puking – and then hyperventilating - a shot.

Whether Smiley knew what was going on or not, she murmured to him, helping him finish curling up into recovery position, and smoothed back his hair as he heaved in short, sharp breaths. His first reaction might have been psychological, but this one certainly wasn't, and Jack crossed his arms and physically held himself back from moving. He wasn't sure if he intended to push Smiley out of the way and take her place, or beat the living shit out of Adams, but that was _his_ EOD in agony on that cave floor, and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it.

Jack honestly couldn't believe it when Adams started talking again. "Oh . . . shit, MacGyver, it . . . it wasn't like that –"

" _Shut. Up_." Jack didn't look at Adams again, and after a few more seconds of listening to Mac's ragged attempts to breathe, the private muttered half an apology and then simply turned around and retreated into the other chamber.

Normally Jack would have hauled his dumb ass back to safer cover, but he was far too furious. Instead, he pinned his hands under his arms and concentrated on his tech. If it didn't sound like Mac was gettin' his shit back together, they were gonna have to try something else. His heart rate had to be spiking; Jack didn't want to have to knock the kid out but he needed to calm the fuck down before he made whatever was bleedin' inside his chest any worse.

It took a little while, but Smiley started stroking his hair, then his back, and little by little she managed to quiet him down. By the time she sat back on her heels, his face was screwed up tight, and he was sucking air through his nose in a very deliberate rhythm. He didn't acknowledge her or anyone else, and Smiley's shoulders sagged in a little sigh.

No one spoke for a long time after that.

Jack finally managed to calm down enough to sit, his back against the cave wall facing his tech, and he passed the time by listening to the bombing runs. It was always damn hard to tell exactly where things were by sound in a mountain range, depending on how the sound was bouncing, and he eventually pulled his 9 mm and ejected a bullet from the chamber. He fished a small pebble out from under his ass, along with a few of its closest friends, and when he found one in a shape he liked, he balanced the bullet on it, and then watched.

The closer a bombing or gun run was to their location, the more the vibrations traveled across the rock floor. Nearby ones were enough to upset the bullet and knock it over. Further out, not so much. While they could all hear the thunder, within about twenty minutes Jack could tell that some of the rumbles they were hearing weren't cluster bombs at all, and the activity had moved significantly north.

That was good. The further they could drive back the Tallies, the closer Hammer and Keystone could get to them.

When the bullet hadn't been knocked off its perch for a good four minutes, Jack scooped it back up. The LED lantern cast the light in such a way that he could see every facet and detail on the round, and he balanced his right hand up on one of his bent knees and turned it slowly, over and over.

He didn't even realize he was doing it until his radio crackled, the transmission unclear, and his fingers tightened reflexively around the bullet. His eyes automatically focused on the next closest thing, and he found himself staring at his tech.

MacGyver was watching him, raw pain and fury in his gaze, and as soon as Jack made eye contact with him, Mac resolutely closed them.

Smiley had heard the broken transmission, and she got to her feet the same time Dalton did. He gestured for her to head out first, his eyes lingering on his tech, but Mac didn't open them again, and his expression hadn't changed.

Adams was near the mouth of the cave, head bent as he listened, and he flinched a little when the lieutenant put a hand on his shoulder. They didn't have to go fully outside for the radio to penetrate; it was a lot more powerful now that they had multiple units in the area.

Jack ignored the chatter for a moment, it was the ass end of a string of coordinates, and instead watched the private tracing them out on Ramallama's map.

Way the hell further out than they should have been.

Jack keyed the radio, then paused. "Private, who the hell just called that in?" He tried to keep his voice perfectly neutral.

Adams wouldn't meet his eyes. "Uh, Hammer, sir."

"Hammer, Sweeper Six, say again, over."

This time he and Smiley got the full string, but it didn't change where Adams' finger was. Three klicks from their current position. That was almost two miles.

Smiley was clearly thinking the same thing. "Hammer, this is Sweeper Actual, you gotta do better than that. Our crit will never make three klicks, over."

There was a brief pause. "Sweeper, we've blown the shit outta those mountains and air support's still dodgin' RPGs. You are surrounded and we can't a bird any closer to you. Confirm your non-crits can make the trek, over."

"Hammer, what about my crit?"

Jack was tempted to start frequency scanning to see if he could figure out where the main op chatter was happening, but that critical patient was near and dear to his heart and they _weren't_ leaving without him.

"Sweeper, if you can get your two non-criticals here, part of Keystone element will escort you back to your current position with a litter and provide cover and support. We got a bird comin' in for dustoff in twenty mikes, next one's an hour out. You need to get to this LZ, over."

Twenty minutes to get Ramallama and Higgins three klicks. Apparently while walking directly through enemy positions. Just so they could turn around – with more men – and make the same trek two more times, once to get Mac and once to bring him back.

It was dark out there, but a clear night – Jack remembered seeing the stars. They might be able to navigate without night vision equipment, but that meant so could the T-men. And they knew the terrain a hell of a lot better.

Then again, they'd been getting their asses handed to them by the US Air Force for the past couple hours, and were more likely to be watching the sky than the ground. And there was no getting Mac out without that litter. There was no way he could walk, and they couldn't carry him any other way, not with that injury.

"I can make that trek, get the litter, pick up a few of Keystone's boys, and come back," Jack stated firmly.

Smiley's lips were no more than a gash across her face. "Dalton, I don't disagree, but if we're surrounded, someone's bound to have noticed where bombs didn't get dropped. We can get half of Sweeper out in twenty minutes if we move now. And if god forbid you don't make it back, Keystone'll have a hell of a time finding us -"

Their radios popped. "Sweeper, confirm you're inbound with your two non-crits, over."

Jack shook his head. "I can get there without being spotted, by the time anyone sees Keystone comin' back with me, we'll be in and out before they have time to mobilize. If we do this Hammer's way, we've got larger parties moving back and forth both times, and they'll ambush that last group for sure."

"Or they won't see us at all," Smiley argued. "We don't know who's out there, and we'll have fewer injured the second trip so we should be able to move faster." The second she finished the sentence, she seemed to convince herself, and keyed the radio. "Hammer, this is Sweeper Actual, we are oscar mike with two non-critical surgical. Have Keystone ready and waiting for us, over."

Her eyes never left his, and Jack did what he did every time he was given an order he disagreed with. "Yes ma'am." Then he fixed it. "Best defense'll be if they think we all left. Adams, kill the lantern, stick to the back with Mac, and don't make a goddamn sound unless you have to. I've got IR in my scope, I'll lead with Ramarao. You follow with Higgins."

The lieutenant gave him a sharp nod, and they headed back to the rear chamber.

It didn't take long to get everyone up to speed. No need to take the packs; that could all be cleaned up after the op was done. Jack deposited Ramallama's – really, Serrano's – spare M4 mags on the ground where he wanted Adams to stay, tucking two into his own vest before checking that the weapon's magazine was full and slipping the rifle's strap over his head. He extended the sling on the Barrett a little, swinging it to his back for the moment, and then he took the last M9 out of the egress kit, and he knelt down next to MacGyver.

The kid's eyes were open again, watching the activity, and when it became obvious that ignoring Jack wasn't going to work, he got steady, cold blue eyes. Jack gave the kid a cock-eyed grin.

"We'll be back before you know it." With the kid lying on his side, there was no good way for him to hang onto the weapon that wouldn't have the barrel pointing at a friendly, so Jack placed it deliberately in front of his face, in easy reach even allowing for his injury. "Anyone comes through that door that don't have a US Army uniform on, you do what you need to do."

Mac's eyes flickered, as if suppressing a blink. "What, hoping . . . I'll take after Boone and save you the inconvenience?"

Jack felt his grin slip, but apparently that wasn't enough, because Mac kept going. "Keep it. The morphine you wouldn't . . . give the captain'll do the trick for me."

If there had been anger in it – bitterness, rage, even hatred – it would have been easier to take. But the kid's voice was eerily flat, his expression one of cold exhaustion.

Jack didn't know how to respond, and he realized how utterly quiet it had gotten. No bombs going off, no rumble of explosions. No sound from the rest of Sweeper, it was like they were holding their breath. And Mac's eyes just watched him, unblinking.

Jack pitched his voice low, but loud enough to carry. "I'm gonna give you a pass, because I know you're hurtin'. I did exactly what the captain asked me to. He didn't want any more pain, and I sure as hell wasn't gonna tell the man he hadda keep sufferin' for no good reason. And neither he . . . nor I . . . give a _damn_ what you think about that."

Jack straightened, leaving the M9 right where it was, and Mac's eyes followed him until it was too hard to look up. They slipped with a roll back to the cave wall. He didn't say another word.

Dalton turned back for the cave entrance, finding the lieutenant standing there with Higgins' arm around her shoulders. The young co-pilot looked stricken, but he locked eyes with Jack, and then gave him a jerky nod. When he did, a couple tears tumbled down his cheeks.

Ramallama was to his left, his right eye the only one he could get even slightly open without holding it, and Dalton adjusted his weapons. "Keep a hand on my left shoulder, and try to stay behind me." Then he turned and glanced back at Adams, still in the second chamber with Mac.

"Stay hidden, stay quiet. And don't you rile him up again."

After that, he pushed everything out of his mind but the mission. It was exceedingly difficult to do.

The landscape looked a little different in the dark. Smoke and a few fires burned up on some of the ridges, making it hard to tell what was shadows and what was rock. There were several places Jack had to keep the rifle up just to get them around a gorge or through a goat trail, and his right arm was starting to burn a little by the time they hit a bit of a straightaway and he was able to check his watch.

Eighteen minutes. And a glance at Ramallama's map told him they weren't going to cover the next half-mile in two.

He hadn't wasted the time scanning for the op channel, and he wished he had when his own radio crackled, and Hammer asked for an update. Smiley replied, her voice much softer than Higgins' muffled gasps, and Jack again scanned the ridges around them.

There wasn't a damn thing out there. He didn't see so much as a flicker of movement that wasn't a fire burning itself out. They'd already hiked through two relatively decent landing sites for a helo – in defense of Hammer, not ideal, but a good pilot could get in, get their injured, and get out of RPG range in less than sixty seconds - and both were way the hell closer than their current destination.

For making the man basically jog on a broken leg, the co-pilot was holding up remarkably well, and they hit the LZ about three minutes late. Jack could hear the bird before they saw her, but not terribly well due to the landscape, and he figured the pilots were only cussing them a little. They'd been staying in the air for safety, and Jack made everyone take a knee when the wash hit. Smiley called in their position, and once they got permission to approach Jack started immediately for the Blackhawk, Ramarao still glued to his left shoulder.

There were three men holding the north perimeter around the bird, who Jack guessed were the Keystone element he and Smiley were taking back, and Jack was itching to hop into the bird just to get a quick word with the pilots when all hell broke loose.

He wasn't sure if Keystone had seen something, or they were fired upon first, but as soon as he heard the first shots he whirled and brought up the M4. Jack picked one of the three muzzle flashes he could see, laying down cover fire in short bursts, and he sensed more than saw Smiley dragging Higgins to the bird. Ramallama was no longer attached, and Smiley gave him a firm tap on the back of his right shoulder to signal that she was done and behind him when she suddenly ripped it across his back.

It was too dark to make out where she was hit, but she was on the ground, and it didn't really matter. He was only about twenty feet from the bird, and he made eye contact with one of the men on board, even as the Blackhawk started to rise up off its wheels.

He grabbed Smiley by the vest and bodily dragged her to the loading door, and the medic on board met him halfway. She wasn't helping much if at all, but the medic was screaming into his mic, and the Blackhawk steadied enough to allow the handoff. Jack saw two pops in the frame of the door, and presumably as least one round passed right through the cabin and out the other side. As soon as the lieutenant's feet cleared the door the pilot was out of there, and Jack hit the dirt on his stomach, taking a second to actually aim this time before firing a burst round at the furthest muzzle flash.

The other two were almost on top of Keystone, firing from opposite sides of the same outcropping, and as soon as the helo was gone Jack was up and racing towards cover. He slid in behind two of the three Keystone men, only one of whom was firing, and he didn't need radio or light to see the other guy'd been hit. He was down but moving, and Jack relieved him of a couple grenades.

"Cover fire! Cover fire!" he bellowed, and wherever the other Keystone guy was, he responded. Jack pulled the first pin and gave it a three count before he popped up and threw it, and then he pulled the second pin and threw it slightly further back of the first. Then he dropped.

Not fast enough. He felt the tag, like someone had sucker punched him in the left shoulder, and Jack fell back onto his ass. The uninjured Keystone man reached back, grabbed him by the pant leg, and dragged him closer to the rock, and then the first grenade went off. There was a sharp cry, and then the second popped.

The other Keystone soldier continued firing until it was clear no one was shooting back, and Jack eased his left shoulder in a tight circle, reaching across his vest. It stung like hell, but didn't feel like the slug had penetrated his vest, and Jack gradually became aware of the uninjured man in their trio getting on the radio.

The radio . . .

Jack pulled himself up a little, enough to cradle his left arm to his chest, and he reached over to the guy lying beside him, snagging the radio off his vest. He checked the frequency, then dialed in, and his earpiece exploded with chatter.

Jack let his head fall back to the sand and listened for a second, trying to get his bearings. He was right; the guys with him were part of Keystone, and the rest of the element had just been ambushed. Various pieces of Hammer were pinned but trying to assist. At this point there were too many men in the shit for air support to do much of anything, and based on the callsigns, there were a _lot_ of men on the ground. Upwards of forty, pushing north towards where their Blackhawk had been shot down, what seemed like a week ago.

And it was only then Jack realized he hadn't gotten the litter off that helo.

He had nothing to carry Mac back to the LZ with.

His left shoulder popped painfully, and Jack reached up, waited for a pause in the chatter, and keyed his radio. "TOC, Sweeper Six, now designate Sweeper Actual. Keystone element sent for escort is down. I still have one critical and no way to carry him to the LZ. Request a dustoff and air support to new coordinates. Over."

The Keystone element that was not injured gave Jack a look, and he gave it right back. "We were just ambushed by a four man team just like your buddies up ahead of us. These guys are crawlin' all over the mountains and we can rain fire all night and not get a one of 'em. Without a stretcher you're useless to me. Secure your wounded, get new orders, and get back in there, son."

His earpiece popped. "Sweeper, CAS evac inbound, fifty mikes, same LZ, over."

Nope.

"TOC, Sweeper, inform Colonel Martinez that enemy tactics are shifting to small man teams. Repeat request for an actual goddamn ready reaction force to establish foothold, secure new LZ, and send new coordinates for CAS evac. How copy, over."

Whoever was manning the TOC tonight didn't sound terribly happy. "Sweeper, good copy, stand by."

Jack rolled out his shoulders again, confirming his left arm worked, however painfully. The grenades probably only got two, which left whoever had been shooting at the other Keystone guy, and the sniper that had tried to pick him off. He shoved the M4 over and brought the Barrett around, using the IR in the scope to try to find the asshole that'd tagged him.

And probably also shot the lieutenant.

It was a race to see if he could find the bastards before the TOC got back to him, and he finally caught motion where the third muzzle flash had come from. Dude was retreating, and Jack didn't want to give himself away so he followed the natural trail up to where he'd be if he was covering his own guys. Sure enough, when Number Three made it most of the way up the slope, a round shape seemed to ghost across the very top of the ridgeline, and Jack took him down.

Number Three scrambled to make it over the ridge, and Jack made contact, but he wasn't actually sure it was a kill, and he frowned and scanned the rest of the rocks.

"Dude, you're good to go," he said after a long moment, and then he slung the Barrett behind him again, and picked up the M4. The other Keystone guy was still in position somewhere off to his left, and Jack gave a nod in that direction before he picked his way up the slope, still wary of Number Three. He found the sniper, but the guy's rifle was nowhere to be seen, and Number Three wasn't where Jack had left him.

Damn.

He knew the decision was probably going to come back to bite him in the ass, but Jack radioed Keystone to let them know they still had an enemy in the immediate vicinity, and then he headed back for Adams and Mac. He took the long way around, and even moving quickly about half an hour had passed before he made those three klicks. He approached the cave from the northeast, careful of Smiley's doorbell, and when he was about twenty yards out he put his foot down beside a fist-sized rock and felt the pop.

It was way quieter than he'd expected; the explosion sent a sharp but not terribly powerful punch through his right boot. He froze, because of course he'd just stepped on an explosive and right foot was probably gone, and it occurred to Dalton that he was still on the op frequency, and if Adams had been calling him to tell him he'd set up additional security measures, dude had been talking to dead air.

Jack didn't look down. Everybody knew that until you actually saw the damage, it wouldn't start to hurt. Instead, he blindly adjusted his radio back to Sweeper's frequency. Sure enough, he caught the ass end of a transmission.

Jack took a slow, even breath, and then he hit the transmit button. "Sweeper Three, Sweeper, say again, over."

There was a pause that seemed to stretch into a lifetime.

"Sweeper Six, that you outside?"

Well, it sure as hell _used_ to be. Most of him, anyway. "Affirm, Sweeper Three."

Oddly, even over the radio, the private sounded relieved. "Sweeper Six, be advised I deployed noisemakers."

Noisemakers.

Jack took another steadying breath, this time smelling gunpowder, and then he dared to look down.

It was pretty dark, and his sand-colored boot blended in with the sand-colored sand, so he shifted it a little. Nothing hurt. He heard the boot drag across the ground, and then he tapped it firmly onto the rock.

Still no pain. It took his weight just like it always did.

Jack took a knee, using a gloved hand to shove the rock over, and he heard the muffled metallic ring of a bullet casing rolling away. There wasn't enough light to pick up the shine of the metal, but it didn't matter. His relief was quickly morphing into anger.

Adams was infantry. No way had he figured out how to rig a bullet to go off when someone stepped on a rock.

Also, the damn thing could have shot him in the foot. And while the noise warned Adams he was approaching, he'd also just warned any Tally in the area that someone was nearby.

Jack avoided any other small rocks, dropping down from above and easing himself over the ledge into the cave, and though he hadn't noticed it on approach, there was a very dim glow coming from the second chamber, outlining a standing figure clad in ACUs.

God _damn_ it!

"Adams, I gave you an order," he growled, and it was about that time he realized that he could actual hear Mac in the other chamber. It sounded like an asthmatic had just tried to run a 5K.

The private shuffled to the side as Jack bore down on him. "I'm sorry, sir, but Smiley said to keep him calm, and – I think it was the dark, he wouldn't sit still. I dimmed the light best I could, and he had it apart in like, ten seconds, I just turned my back for a minute –"

Then Jack was past him.

The LED lantern was definitely dimmer than it had been, and someone – probably Adams – had built a little wall of packs now that Higgins was gone to further shield the light from bleeding into the first chamber. It was still plenty bright enough to see MacGyver was still on his side, curled up in a loose fetal position, with his hands near his face. He couldn't seem to catch his breath, and his fingers were working feverishly. Jack could see something red in his right hand.

In front of him were remnants of the M9. Basically just the grip. The slide and magazine were missing, along with the barrel, the trigger mechanism, and the lower frame. It was well beyond field stripped – he'd taken the damn thing apart to the bare bolts.

There were bits of bullet rims and casings scattered around, along with a piece of smudged paper – so that's where the gunpowder had come from – and he was carefully boring a hole in a little square pouch he'd made of MRE plastic.

Jack's first instinct was to kick the entire mess away from him. As it was, he could barely keep his voice at a regular speaking volume. "Whatcha doin', Mac?"

At first nothing happened, then the kid flinched a little, like he's only just realized someone had spoken. His eyes shifted towards him, a little drunkenly, and he glared up at Jack from the cave floor.

And right then and there, Jack decided that enough was enough.

He swooped in and grabbed Mac's right hand to secure the swiss army knife, sending the little pouch of gunpowder spilling across the floor. The kid growled but Jack didn't let go; he steadily applied pressure until the tech dropped the multitool.

"It's a _gun_ , not a goddamn erector set! I gave this to him for protection, what the _fuck_ were you thinkin' lettin' him –"

"Get off me!" Mac gave his hand a weak tug, and Jack released him, swiping the knife out from under him and folding up the blade as he stood.

The private looked both guilty and terrified, and he just started to open his mouth when MacGyver answered for him.

"We needed an early . . . warning system. I _ordered_ him, Dalton."

Jack rounded back on his tech, not missing the fact MacGyver had chosen to call him by his last name. "The lieutenant already set up a damn doorbell. All you've done is tell God and everybody for a mile exactly where the fuck you are!"

It was pretty clear Mac wasn't completely there; he couldn't hold up his head any longer, and let it fall back against his pack, still panting. " _You_ did that. If you hadn't gone off coms . . . you would have known they were out there. Adams's'been trying to raise you . . . both for half an hour." Something seemed to occur to him then; his brow furrowed, and he picked up his head again, searching the cavern.

Looking for Smiley.

"I sent the louie on the bird," Jack snapped. "Which means we don't got a spare sidearm," and Jack turned back on Adams, gesturing at his tech, "- because you let _this_ idiot take it apart!"

Adams had glanced back into the main chamber, and looked clearly reluctant to say anything else to a fuming Jack Dalton. "Sir, the – the stretcher, are we not-"

"Ready reaction force is inbound, they'll secure a closer LZ and provide escort." That wasn't exactly what was going to happen, but Jack didn't feel like arguing about it. "How many of those goddamn things are out there?" He kind of had his own answer, each mag held fifteen rounds so he had thirty max, and he was taking them apart for the gunpowder, probably, so –

"She's dead," Mac said suddenly.

He'd gone quite still, his hands lying limp where he'd dropped them, breathing rapidly but staring almost sightlessly at him. _Through_ him, more like.

"The lieutenant's dead, isn't she," Mac repeated, and it wasn't a question.

For just a split second, Jack thought he was going to lose it. He was gonna throw a punch back, because he'd been taking quite a few that he damn well didn't deserve, whether Mac was in pain or not. But the sightless look wasn't blame, like it had been earlier. It was shock.

The kid was in shock.

"I don't know." He didn't quite manage to get all the edge off his tone. "We got hit loadin' the bird. She took a round. Medic got his hands on her right then. Helo got off safe, I don't think Higgins or Ramarao took any fire."

Adams looked almost as stunned as Mac did. "Is . . . is anybody actually comin' for us?"

Jack gave him a sharp look. "The best goddamn operators in the Army. What-" Then it all clicked.

When he'd gone silent, they'd assumed the worst. Mac had dismantled the gun to put together his little firecrackers because they thought they were on their own, and it was the only thing he could do to help Adams.

Jack glanced at the pack wall again, the one that was blocking the lantern light from the front chamber. Three of the four bags were EOD. Adams had put all the explosives well out of MacGyver's reach.

He re-evaluated his opinion of the private.

Slightly.

"Yeah, dude. They're comin' for us. We don't leave men behind."

"We already did," Mac contradicted dully.

Jack took a deep breath through his nose. "Adams, stay on our old freq in case Dragon has an update for us. Out there," he added, jerking his chin at the main room. The private took the hint and moved out into the other chamber.

Jack unclipped the M4 and took the opportunity to swap a fresh mag in, then leaned it against the wall. He did the same with the Barrett, but he pocketed the half-empty mag, just in case. Then he dialed down the volume on his radio to almost silent. In the light, he finally made out the hole in his vest, and since the wrapper on the energy bar in his upper left pocket had already been punctured by the sniper's round, he fished it out and finished unwrapping it. Then he slid down the wall opposite MacGyver.

This time Mac didn't close his eyes. He was still panting, even now that he was still, and Jack wondered if the bleeding and pressure were finally starting to squeeze his diaphragm.

"We're not leavin' anyone behind, Mac," Jack told him, in as level a voice as he could.

The tech made a half-hearted scoffing sound. "We're not . . . the primary objective –"

"You are _my_ primary objective," Jack growled. "I am your overwatch, kid. And when I can't be here, I _need_ to trust that you can keep your damn head from gettin' blown off. I know why you did it," he added, even as Mac opened his mouth to smart off. "You wrote yourself off and set up Adams a little warning system to try to keep him alive. An' I know a pistol ain't your MOS, dude, but you know damn well that gun was way more effective in one piece –"

"No it wasn't," his tech muttered, but without much heat. "Shooting everything that moves might . . . be the way _you_ solve problems . . . but it's not mine."

"This ain't a crossword puzzle, partner. There are guys with guns out there," and he stabbed his fingers in the general direction of outside, "- who wanna fill you fulla holes. A couple bang snaps ain't gonna stop 'em, and they ain't gonna save his life or yours."

"And your solution is more guns?" For the first time, there was a little life in his voice. "Solve the problem by adding _additional_ problem?" He finally caught his breath enough to swallow. "I guess I . . . I shouldn't be surprised . . ."

Jack shook his head with a chuckle that wasn't the least bit amused. "Look, dude, I don't know what's goin' on in that head'a yours, but you needa-"

"We're _not_ on the same page!" Mac shouted, and his hands fisted towards his chest without touching it. Every word seemed to rip something inside him. "We're not in the same _library_! I _disarm_ IEDs, Jack, I don't _make_ them! I keep people _safe_! Now I – you made me – I –" He faltered a little, heaving in shallow breaths. "I killed kids. I killed _kids_."

"You did _no such thing_." Jack shot off the wall, staring the tech down. "You hearin' me? Get that nonsense outta your head right now!"

MacGyver's eyes were wide and blank, and he curled up on himself, gulping air. Jack couldn't help it. He grabbed his tech by the shoulders, forcing him to look at him.

"You did not put those boys in that ravine. You didn't spend the last three years in a classroom teachin' em hate instead of readin' and writin'. You didn't put a weapon in their hands and tell 'em it was on God's orders. You didn't stand by and watch it all happen and not _do_ somethin' about it. That ain't _on_ you."

MacGyver's eyes flickered, that same suppressed blink. "That how you . . . live with yourself?"

Jack almost hit him. "Yeah, Angus, it is," he snarled. "All you did was wire up a standard demo. I'm the one who pressed the button. I got rid of the officers, the adults. I chased those young men behind cover. I did everything I damn well could to convince 'em to get the hell outta that ravine, and they didn't wanna. So yeah, I blew the bird. If I hadn't, they'd'a come up over that ridge and every single one of us would be dead. I ain't apologizin' for it."

Mac looked at him like he'd never seen him before. ". . . I didn't come here . . . to kill."

Only then did Jack realize how hard he was gripping the kid's shoulders. Mac was gasping for air in his grasp. There were tears in his eyes, the kind that never actually fell, and suddenly Jack felt very, very tired.

". . . I know you didn't, Mac. I know."

He forced his fingers to loosen, gently letting Mac sink back to the floor of the cave. It didn't help; MacGyver couldn't seem to catch his breath, and the shock and pain in his eyes was being replaced with panic.

"All right, bud, let's just take this down a notch."

One of his hands came up, claw-like, and pulled at the material covering his chest. "Can't breathe-"

Jack caught his wrist. "Yes you can. Come on, kid, relax, you're okay-"

"- I -"

"In an' out. Just like that. You're doing good, bud. Slow it down just a little."

Jack knew the words didn't really matter; it was the tone of his voice and the touch of his hand. You didn't grow up in the great state of Texas and not learn a thing or two about handlin' a scared critter. He didn't pin Mac's wrist, he held it, giving him an anchor, and the blond slowly started to get a handle on the panic. His lips were so pale Jack couldn't tell if they'd turned blue or not.

" . . . sergeant?"

Jack turned his head, never breaking eye contact with MacGyver. "He's okay, dude."

"No, sir . . . a pilot's trying to reach us. He's twenty mikes out, gave me coordinates and asked if they were secure."

"How far's the LZ." He kept his voice calm and level.

Adams hesitated, and Jack listened to the map crinkle as the private held it towards the dim lantern. He could barely hear it over Mac. "Uh . . . almost two klicks."

Little over a mile. In this terrain, he could make that in ten.

"Tell 'im it'll be cleared for fast ropin' by the time he gets here."

The private withdrew, apparently waiting for a break in the chatter, and Jack gave MacGyver a long look. He was looking less alert by the second, still close to hyperventilating, but he wasn't out of it enough not to understand what was going on.

"You're alright, bud. You're gonna be okay. I'll be right back." He gave the kid's wrist a squeeze, then tried to lower it to his side, but MacGyver wasn't having it.

"Help me –"

"I promise you, man, that's what I'm doin'," Jack told him, in the same quiet voice. "You just sit back and breathe. That's your job. You hear me?"

He put the kid's hand down again, wrapping his fingers around the hem of the jacket his tech still had draped over him. MacGyver made a concerted effort to take a deep breath, but it hurt him too much, and his eyes screwed themselves shut and stayed that way.

Dalton wasted no time in grabbing the M4 and his rifle, strapping the equipment on quietly, and then he turned up the volume on his radio, dialing back into the chatter. Adams had come back in when he saw him moving around, and Jack took the map from him, confirming the coordinates. One of the two places he and Smiley'd trekked through on the way to the original LZ, that he'd already picked out as a potential location.

Good.

"Adams, I don't care what he says to you, I don't care if you have to sit on him, you stop him from movin' around."

The private hesitated. "You said we were going to secure the LZ –"

Damn. He really shoulda dialed back into Sweeper's frequency. Clearly his radio silence had scared 'em both. "I'm comin' back, Adams. Won't be more than an hour." Jack pointed at Mac again. "He doesn't move. You copy?"

The private reluctantly nodded, and then Jack edged towards the cave entrance. He pulled off his head gear and briefly stuck it out, careful to keep the Kevlar towards the outside, but no one took the shot. Once he'd crammed it back on his head he took a position just outside the cave mouth, scanning the ridges, to make sure Number Three hadn't managed to follow him up.

Nothing. He didn't see a damn thing.

His unsettled feeling had never really left, and Jack gave the slope one last pass, then headed out, careful not to step anywhere near any fist sized rocks that might be hiding more of Mac's little noisemakers.

-M-

And now we all see why this didn't make Trimmings – it's just waaaaaay too long. And, I'm a little afraid it's not quite in character. The third and final chapter is even more iffy, and I'm starting to understand what some authors mean when they say 'the characters weren't cooperating.' Because these two are not cooperating.

And I really am sorry about the radio chatter. I did my level best to make it as accurate as possible, but I have a feeling it is anything but.

 **BookNeed007** , I know this isn't exactly what we discussed, and if it wasn't what you had in mind, I can take another run at it.


	3. Chapter 3

Standard disclaimers apply. I don't own any of these characters, please don't sue.

For those of you who recognize a few certain someones, they are being used with permission.

 **TOC** – Tactical Operations Center. **FAK** – First Aid Kit. **CAS Evac** – Casualty evacuation. **VHF** and **UHF** – types of radio. **SWAG** – Scientific Wild Ass Guess. **LZ** – Landing Zone.

-M-

When he opened his eyes, Dalton was gone. Adams was sitting in his place.

Dalton was gone.

For some reason, he thought he should be happy about that. He was angry, he was _furious_ , Jack had –

Had left. He'd left, to go do something, but the . . . the radio wasn't fixed. A quick flash, and he was back in Gardez, looking into Al's sweating face. Watching him walk away. They had too many calls to wait on the robot, and now they had too many calls to wait on the radio.

It was going to happen again.

It was going to happen _again_.

Mac rolled his head on his lumpy pillow, trying to get a look at the packs at his feet. It had to be in there.

"Hey, MacGyver, take it easy. He'll be back soon."

No, he wouldn't. "Radio," Mac managed, and then he realized how fast he was breathing. Hyperventilating. Pressure on his diaphragm was mimicking the sensation of having the wind knocked out of him.

 _Really_ well. Perfectly, actually.

"I got mine." Adams gestured at his ear. "You don't need it. We're good."

Wrong radio. But Mac reached up to his ear anyway, or tried to. There was a jacket over him, and when it shifted he realized he was freezing. The cave system was feeding them cooler air through the wall, probably close to sixty degrees Farenheit or so, but the opening being so close probably bumped it up into the seventies -

It felt way colder.

 _I'm in shock_ , Mac thought, and for some reason, it was familiar. He'd had that thought earlier.

"Hey dude, just stay still, alright?

If he'd lost enough blood to go into shock, he wasn't going to last much longer. Once he passed out, he was no good to Adams anymore. The private was going to get killed waiting for help that wasn't going to come, not fast enough.

The radio. He had to radio in their position, so someone would come for Adams.

The radio was broken.

Mac tried to push himself up, so he could see better. Pain swelled up from his abdomen, gnawing, so much of it that he didn't feel Adams touching him at all, not until he opened his eyes and saw the private was practically on top of him. He was talking, but Mac didn't pay him much attention.

There was something he had to do. Urgently. He felt himself gasping for air, but no matter how much he tried, he just couldn't catch his breath.

He couldn't catch his breath.

Mac opened his eyes, and Adams was gone.

He took a breath. Then another. There was pressure, he couldn't get the air deep enough. He knew it should scare him, but he was so tired. Dizzy. The dark was moving a little, as he watched shadows were sliding off to the left. He heard echoes. Voices.

Adams. Adams was still here.

That was . . . bad, he decided. That was bad. Adams should leave. Go somewhere safe.

It wasn't safe.

He wasn't safe.

The shadows on the wall slid away, and they let a soldier in. His face was covered in a beige scarf, only his eyes were visible. There was a rifle in his hands. He looked at Mac, his dark eyes glittering in the light, and then he stepped into the cavern.

Taliban.

Adams came in next. He wasn't holding his M4, and he looked worried. A mountain of an Afghan was behind him, he made the rifle he was wearing look like a toy. His face was also covered, this time in a rust colored scarf, and when he straightened, the fabric on top of his head brushed the ceiling of the cave.

They were captured.

The first man came to his side, pulling his scarf down, and Mac was vaguely surprised that he was clean-shaven. The dim white LED bulbs made his skin look pale.

"Hey there." His English was impeccable, light and easy. "You must be MacGyver."

Name, rank, birth date, serial number. That was all he was supposed to say. Mac glanced at Adams, standing off to the side as the enormous Afghan knelt to adjust the lantern.

Adams had told them his name?

"Relax, buddy, we're the good guys." The Taliban soldier crouched beside him fished underneath the scarf he was wearing, and came up with dog tags. US Army dog tags. He flashed him a toothy grin. His teeth were white and straight. "Jack Dalton sent us, he told us you got knocked around a little. I'm gonna check you over, that alright with you?"

Jack Dalton.

Jack.

Jack said he was coming back.

They just had to wait for Jack to come back.

But Jack wasn't coming back. Because – because –

The radio.

Someone pulled the jacket off him, and Mac slipped his right hand to his pocket, hunting for his swiss army knife. It wasn't much, but it –

His wrist was caught. "Easy there, pal. I just wanna get a look at ya is all."

"He's really out of it," Adams supplied from the wall. "Last twenty minutes or so."

Mac shot him a dirty look, and the Taliban soldier beside him suddenly grinned.

"Son, you're hearing us just fine, aren't you."

He didn't say anything, and suddenly the giant Afghan loomed overhead, holding the lantern. He'd made it bright again, too bright, Mac squinted and tried to roll away, but his right wrist was still in someone's grip. He tried to pull it free, but then his left hand was taken, and he realized with a jolt they were going to put him in restraints.

He could hear someone rifling through a pack. "So I hear you're from Cali," a different voice said.

Mac got his eyes open again, the light was on his right, now, and the huge Afghan was leaning over him, sitting somewhere above his head. Except he wasn't an Afghan. He was blond. His eyes were light, Mac couldn't see well enough to tell the color, and he reached an arm as thick as a stove pipe over Mac's chest. He felt his wrists being transferred to the man's hold.

"Dunno about you, but I could go for a double-double from In-N-Out right about now," the giant told him. Mac tried to get his hands free, but he might as well have been fighting cement. The man didn't pull them above his head, he just held them in one giant hand, right above his collarbone. He felt cold air hit his abdomen, and Mac tried to pick up his head.

"So what's the story with you? NorCal or SoCal?"

"Got a good hold of him?"

"Oh yeah," the giant confirmed.

Then all Mac felt was pain.

He shouted, maybe words, maybe not. Someone was talking about redwoods. There was dead weight on his legs, he was trapped, he was _trapped_ , and he tried to arch his back, tried to get leverage. He felt a second blow.

Mac gasped, crying out, and then sucked in a breath. Then another. And for the first time he could remember, he felt it.

It felt like he could breathe again.

The pain subsided, enough that he could see, a little. The giant was making a face, then looked down at him, and the disgusted expression trailed off a little into surprise. "Dude. You should prolly pass out," he advised.

Mac stared up at him, then ineffectually tried to pull his wrists free. It was getting easier to breathe by the second, and the pain melted into strange but gentle warmth.

"That's a little better, right?" It was the other voice, and the first face swam back into view. "There you go, deep breaths. We're gonna put you on a stretcher and get you to a bird for evac. Nod if you understand me."

He understood. But he couldn't leave. Jack was coming back, he wouldn't know where they'd gone -

No. Jack wasn't. Jack said he would, but he wasn't. The solider was looking at him, clearly waiting for his response, and Mac glared at him.

"Private, gimme his socks, wouldja?" His voice was still friendly and light, and then he disappeared for a moment before coming back into view. He was smiling. "You are gonna fight us the whole damn way, aren't ya."

Detachedly, Mac felt his feet being manipulated, but try as he might, he couldn't seem to pull them away from whoever had them.

"Gotta move in three," a new voice said, and something about the cadence of the words was familiar. "He gonna be ready?"

"Yeah. He's a little combative, just gonna make sure he doesn't take a header over the side." There was a slight pause, and the soldier looked towards Mac's feet. "You don't need to tie those, private."

"Oh." Adams sounded a little embarrassed, and finally, whoever was playing with his feet seemed to stop.

Something was passed up his side, and then his olive drab socks came into view, and the giant took them. Despite the fact that he was manipulating the fabric, somehow Mac was utterly unable to get his wrists away from him, and he found them firmly bound almost effortlessly.

"Okay, kid, here we go," the first soldier told him, and then seemed to step over something on the floor. There was a little scuffling, and the giant released his hands. Mac didn't dare lay them down anywhere near his chest, lest the pain flare up, so he left them up near his chin, and the giant above him grabbed his uniform by the shoulders.

"Yeah, grab his legs. Up on three. One, two –"

He felt himself picked up, and the pain, which had melted into that comfortable warmth, spiked into white-hot sandpaper. He was put down almost immediately, but it took a few seconds to fade, and people seemed to be moving around him on both sides.

The first soldier was talking, he could always pick out the guy's smooth, soothing voice, and someone took his hands and pulled them to his waist. A strap tightened around his upper arms, and Mac picked up his head, trying to see what was happening. A second strap was tightened at his waist, pinning his lower arms.

They were green nylon straps. Adams was at his feet, securing a third, and the first soldier was doing something to the back of his hand.

"You're gonna feel a little pinch," the man said absently, not looking at his face. Sure enough, he did, and Mac let his head drop back to whatever they'd put him on.

A stretcher, his mind supplied. They'd said that. Take him to a helo. Away from the cave.

Jack wouldn't know where they were.

There were more voices, but he stopped paying attention. He could still breathe, and though hands and other things touched him, they didn't hurt him. He was jolted awake when the floor fell away, and his body folded into itself, forcing his shoulders to roll inward uncomfortably. He didn't have time to brace himself, the pain hit him all at once, and the jostling didn't stop, even when he moaned. By the time he got his eyes open, it felt a little like he was on top of an industrial dryer that was rattling across the floor, and a third soldier, with a scarf around his neck, came into view.

The man gave him a once-over, then raised an eyebrow. "Doc, your patient's lookin' at me."

"You noticed that," the first voice said dryly, somewhere above him, on his right. "He's a tough little SOB."

"Yeah, well, Wyatt said. He gonna stay quiet?"

"I don't wanna knock him out unless we have to."

The older soldier gave him another penetrating stare. Then he transferred it up to somewhere over Mac's left shoulder. "Private. What's your name?" The drawl was familiar, and oddly comforting.

"Adams, sir."

"Adams, match my guy's stride, try to give the kid a smooth ride. We get contact, you take your cue from the redwood up there." Mac heard the action on a rifle cycle through someone checking the chamber. "Move out."

It was the night sky he made out next, the stars weirdly dim. Mac kept waiting for his eyes to adjust, but they never did. Outside of the breathing of the men around him, and their boots on the rocks, he didn't hear much of anything. There were two at his head, but it seemed like only one at his feet, and he knew for a fact that field evac was supposed to be done by a four man team, but then he remembered the giant Afghan who wasn't an Afghan, and suddenly his feet being higher than the rest of him made sense.

The jostling hurt – particularly when they went up. He felt like he was going to slide right off the uncomfortable hammock he was bound to, but he tried not to make a sound. And he didn't understand why.

They were taking him away. He didn't know where. Adams was _helping_ them. He didn't know why. They weren't Army medics. No patches. They weren't even in uniform, not really. He craned his head back and caught sight of the guy over his right shoulder. The scarf wasn't on his head anymore, but he was still wearing it there on his neck.

The guy looked down at him. "Almost there," he whispered, so softly Mac barely heard him. "Hang in there, pal."

They seemed to slip down more than descend a slope, rocks and sand hissing and crunching under them, and then someone cranked up the sound. It took him too long to recognize the rumble of a helicopter, and then they leveled off, and the breeze started blowing sand up his nostrils. Mac winced and turned his head a little, but the noise and the wind got worse, louder and louder. It was overwhelming, and Mac shouted back.

There was suddenly light, impossibly bright, and Mac turned away from it, or tried to. He felt the man at his feet step up something relatively high, and then the men in the back raised him up level, and he opened his eyes to see bright green lights.

"Got him," someone called, and then his body settled onto something hard. His shoulders could finally roll back, and he felt relief as some of the pressure faded. He pried his eyes open again, and found himself in the green-bathed cabin of a Blackhawk. Someone in a bona fide US Army medic uniform came to his side, wearing a very bright green headlamp mounted on his combat helmet, and Mac watched the beam spotlight a bag of fluid getting unattached from something – someone – above him, and transferred to a pole.

"Grab Wyatt's jacket!" someone called, and the person above his right shoulder came to his right side, unstrapping him from the stretcher.

"Looks like this is adios, kiddo," he said, and then he gently peeled off the extra uniform jacket that Mac hadn't even realized was still lying on top of him. "Guess ol' Jack wants this back. Cold really starts bugging ya when you get to be his age."

"I heard that!" a familiar voice yelled, and the soldier flashed him a smile and disappeared out the right loading door. It was only empty a second; another figure entered the green lights, and Mac blinked up into a wide Jack Dalton grin.

"Hey bud." He made quick work of getting his vest off, and started putting the jacket on. "These fine flyboys are gonna take you back to Kabul, getcha patched up."

As soon as the jacket was zipped, Jack was slipping the vest back on. Mac blinked, unable to figure out why he would be doing that if they were being evaced.

His overwatch correctly interpreted his confusion. "Gotta go get Boone and Serrano. I'll be back by the time you wake up, kid." There was a hand on his shoulder, that Mac barely felt, and then Jack was gone, and the right loading door was being pulled shut.

The medic leaned in close to his left ear. "Specialist, I'm gonna start you something for the pain. It's gonna make you a little drowsy, okay?"

After that, Mac was only aware of flashes. Pain. Lights. Deafening sound. He was always being moved, being touched. It always hurt. No one would leave him alone. He was nauseous, all he wanted was just a little peace and quiet. Darkness. Silence.

He just wanted to sleep.

But something kept picking at him, forcing him to open his eyes, time and time again. Sudden noises. Faces covered in blue cloth. Lights moving sickeningly overhead. Someone put a mask on his face, hard and uncomfortable, and he tasted onions.

It took him a while to realize he was awake, and MacGyver pried his eyes open once more.

And for once, it was quiet. Cool. Dark.

He slowly picked out the ceiling tiles above him. There was a curtain on his right, hanging from chains on a metal track, and he followed it idly around the ceiling in a horseshoe, to the other side of the bed. Something large and dark was there, and Mac turned his head a little, listening to a pillow crinkle as he did so.

Sprawled in a chair near the side of the bed was a crusty, filthy Jack Dalton. His arms were crossed over his chest, and his chin was almost touching them. He was dead to the world.

Mac studied him for a moment, eyes on any pattern in the camo that could have been blood, but it all seemed to kind of blur together.

Someone touched his hand.

Mac jerked awake. The lighting was brighter. A nurse in scrubs held out her blue-gloved hands in a placating manner, and Mac stared at her for a second before he slowly relaxed back against the mattress. The pain barely registered.

"Good afternoon, specialist," she greeted him. "Do you know where you are?"

Mac glanced around. The curtain was gone. He was in a room, now, with another bed on his left. It was occupied, a sleeping Latino guy with very neatly trimmed hair that almost screamed Marine.

There was no chair. And no Jack Dalton.

Then his brain caught up. "Afternoon?" It was raspy, and he cleared his throat and tried again. "What time is it?"

"A little after fourteen hundred." She was watching him closely. "How do you feel?"

He glanced down at himself, not surprised to find the usual hospital gown, this time tied in the front. He unthinkingly went to pull it open, to see the damage, and a little twinge in his right elbow reminded him that he was attached to an IV. "Uh . . . fine," he said, a little lamely, picking at the gown with his left hand instead.

"Any pain? Nausea? Lightheadedness?"

"No . . ." Actually, he felt kind of numb. Mac twitched his feet, just to be sure they worked, and outside of feeling like they'd been lying in the same position for the last twelve hours, they seemed fine.

"Do you need anything right this moment?"

He swallowed, kind of expecting himself to be thirsty, but he found he wasn't. "Uh, no. I think."

He almost missed her bright smile. "As soon as the doctor's through rounding, I'll have him come speak with you. I wasn't on shift last night, but I understand you had a few visitors."

Mac blinked at her. Then it hit him all at once.

"My – my team, were they brought here too? Lieutenant Linda Smiley, Specialist Arush Ramarao, uh . . . Higgins – Trent Higgins, he's a pilot, broken leg –"

"Whoa," she said, but it sounded good-natured, and she pulled a pad of paper out of a pocket. "We're pretty much at capacity right now, if you tell me which unit-"

"EOD. We were part of Sweeper."

The information didn't seem to mean anything to her. She jotted it down, then folded the little notepad back into her pocket. "I'll see what I can find out."

"Thank you," he said, and he meant it.

The nervous little pit in his stomach gradually grew over the next hour. Though many people passed by in the hallway – more in uniform than not – no one stopped at his room. The bruising over his solar plexus was absolutely spectacular. He really needed to get day to day photos of it to send to Bozer, for makeup reference. He wouldn't have believed it was real if it wasn't under his own skin.

While the deep reds had darkened into purples and blues, the very edges were starting to turn ever so slightly yellow. It hurt like hell to touch, and there were seven stitches right over the darkest part. But breathing was easy, and unless he intentionally did something to irritate it, like move at all, the terrible gnawing pain was simply gone.

One of his machines started beeping, and a male orderly appeared in due course and punched a few buttons. He gave Mac a nod, but didn't stop to chat, so MacGyver left him to it. He eventually came back with a small bag of something yellowish, attached a few lines, and the next time Mac opened his eyes, it was darker again.

Things had changed. The overhead lights were off, but the light attached to his headboard was on. A little table was hovering above his waist, containing a plastic tray with the kind of sad greyish beige cover recognizable the world over. He didn't really smell anything, so he figured whatever it was had been there a while.

And there was a person, seated on his right side.

Mac turned his head a little, and found his overwatch staring right at him.

Jack didn't say anything, but eventually he turned his right arm over, glancing at the inside of his wrist. Most of the guys Mac knew wore their watches backwards, with the faces on the inside of their forearms instead of the outside. It was an easier motion to look at the watch, and you tended to bang your arms into stuff a lot and break a lot of watch faces on a military base.

"I remember bein' able to sleep like that," Jack murmured, almost fondly. "Not that I had much opportunity. Get it while you can."

There was something ever so slightly . . . off . . . about his tone, and Mac let the quip about his age go, looking up the IV tree. Sure enough, the little bag of yellow stuff was bone dry.

"I had a little help," he rasped, and then he swallowed with a shallow cough. One of the things on his tray table was an ugly plastic maroon cup with a bendy straw sticking out of it, and he helped himself to the water. After a few swallows, his stomach gave him a slight little warning tremor, and he immediately stopped and set it back down.

"How's the . . . the rest of Sweeper?"

If the question surprised Jack, he didn't show it. "'Bout the same as you. Ramallama's gonna be suckin' soup through a straw for a while, but he'll be fine. Smiley's runnin' around somewhere, she's pissed the sling is navy blue instead of green. She stopped by a few hours ago but you were out." He waved a hand in the general direction of the hallway. "The nugget got a plate and some screws, don't know if he's up and about yet."

Mac took a slow, deliberate breath, and waited for the little knot of anxiety to loosen.

They were fine. Even the lieutenant. They had all been treated, and they were going to be fine.

But that pit in his stomach stayed staunchly right where it was.

"I wasn't here when your doc stopped by. Nurse says you still got all your original parts and pieces, they're just gonna hang onto ya for a couple days and make sure that mess does what it's s'pposed to." Jack nodded at the general direction of the tray table, but Mac understood it was supposed to be his chest.

"Thanks," he said quietly.

Jack shrugged. "Nurse said you were askin' earlier. She's off shift now, gave me the gist. Kinda cute."

Normal banter. Normal tone. Nothing threatening, nothing demanding.

But still, ever so slightly off.

Mac looked back at the tray on the table, but he was pretty sure he didn't want anything in it. He picked up the cup, for lack of anything else to do with his hands, and his overwatch made a little noise, and reached down to the floor beside him.

"We're at Camp Eggers, not sure anyone told ya. So not my usual box-kicker." Jack came up with two containers of paperclips, a bag of rubber bands, and a couple books. "Got a line on a portable DVD player, but not sure you can stay awake through a movie just yet."

Mac stared at the items Jack unpacked from his knapsack, not quite sure what to do, and Jack settled back into the chair, tucking his backpack out of the way. "I mean, I get cheesy romance novels prolly ain't your thing, but beggars can't be choosers."

Mac picked up the top book, with the words 'Princess Bride' in large white text. Even if the title hadn't given it away, on the cover a woman in red and white medieval dress was being led through a murky forest by a black-suited pirate carrying a rapier.

"I've never read this," he heard himself say.

"Imagine that," Jack responded dryly.

Mac glanced over at the other bed, but the Latino Marine was nowhere to be seen.

"That guy got cut loose about an hour ago. Enjoy the private room, man. This place was hoppin' a few days ago."

Mac blinked. "A few days ago . . .?"

Jack raised an eyebrow. "Dude, it's Thursday."

Sweeper had gone out to eval the bridge Monday morning.

Mac set the book back down on the table, and picked up the box of paperclips. "How'd . . . the rest of the op go?"

Jack's voice was perfectly steady. "Trainin' camp's been neutralized. Took us a minute, and I'm sure a few of 'em are still runnin' around loose in the mountains, but they sure as hell won't be taking pot shots at Army birds for a while." He readjusted himself in his chair, getting comfortable. "Serrano and Boone are headed home Saturday. Smiley's gonna push for a Silver Star for the captain. I sent my recommendation along with hers. So did you, by the way, if anybody asks."

Mac digested that. A Silver Star was awarded for singular acts of valor or heroism during engagement with enemy forces.

And he would have written and signed that recommendation, if he'd been awake. Having seen the damage to the Blackhawk up close, he knew the pilot's actions in the first five seconds after impact were the only reason any of them crawled out of that wreckage.

Even though the captain himself had not.

The knot in his stomach tightened a little, and Mac opened the box of paperclips.

"Listen, Mac –"

"Thanks, for this," he broke in, holding up a paperclip. "I appreciate it. But I'm kinda tired. Do you mind . . .?"

Jack's smile was wry. "The guy who just slept for three days is tired?"

Mac gave a little shrug. "Unconscious is not the same thing as asleep."

"I didn't say it was." The wry smile was still in place. "You need me back here for anything?"

It hit him like a sucker punch, but Mac couldn't quite figure out why. He'd just thrown the other man out of his room, of course he was going to ask if –

"Nah. Thanks though," Mac's mouth said, without any sort of input from his brain. "We're out of rotation, I'm sure they've got you on modified duty. And Eggers is a couple hours from the FOB . . ."

"Yeah, that they do," the man drawled agreeably, addressing only the first part of Mac's excuse. They stared at one another a second, and then Jack clapped his hands on his knees and stood. "Well, dude, sleep well, feel better and all that jazz. I'll see ya when you get back to the FOB."

And then Jack scooped up his backpack and walked away. He eased the door mostly closed, to block out some of the hall noise on his way out.

The knot tightened further.

-M-

The next few days seriously challenged Mac's faith in Einstein's theory of special relativity. He was most certainly not an accelerating observer. He was barely even a moving one. And despite the fact that the camp infirmary was absolutely not operating in a vacuum, Mac would have sworn that everything, including light, was moving both faster and slower than it should have been.

He would lose time. Despite his anxiety and boredom, his body was quite capable of ignoring the adrenaline in favor of the painkillers. And Mac hadn't realized just how much of his comfort was due to them until they were gone, and he woke to more than just a shadow of the peculiarly biting pain. Mac chalked it up to the nerve cluster that had been thoroughly abused, which was something he'd never experienced before, and made him feel just a little bad for whacking Smitty right at the exact same spot when he came around a corner unexpectedly in the Tombs back at MIT.

He managed to miss Smiley a second time; a nurse woke him to prep him for a CT scan and he saw the lieutenant's back disappearing out the door. The only part of the sling he could see was a white shoulder strap. The doctor came in later and spoke to him. No permanent damage. Two weeks of PT, four weeks light duty. Not enough to get him sent home.

They had him up and walking the morning after he talked with Jack. The catheter being removed was a very strange experience, and not one that he was interested in repeating. His legs still didn't feel quite right, a little too weak to really trust, and the few opportunities he had to wander the hospital were always short and supervised. He glanced into all the rooms he passed, but didn't see any familiar faces.

Mac was more than ready to leave when, on the fourth morning he could clearly remember, the nurse from the first day breezed in with his discharge papers.

"Just sign here," she said with a smile, shifting his breakfast tray over slightly to make room on the little tray table.

He did so, noting that the form was in more than triplicate, and wondering exactly what he'd actually just agreed to. Probably absolving the United States military for any future complications that might arise from his injury.

Not for the first time since everything had happened, Mac wondered if his experience was anything even remotely like Harry's. And not for the first time since everything had happened, he wished fiercely that his grandfather was around, so that he could ask him.

Ask him what the hell he was supposed to do.

Knowing his grandpa like he did, he was sure there was a single sentence that would untangle all of this for him. No one knows how long they have. All you need is what's out there, and what's in here. All those smarts come at a price.

You love people for their flaws.

The first time he and Boze had gotten into it, really gotten into it, Harry had found him underneath the treehouse, trying to figure out how to split it up equitably in such a way that he and Bozer got time equivalent to the amount of work they'd put in, and their specific uses for the space, but didn't have to see each other. Harry had listened attentively while Mac walked through the logic, the facts of who had done what and his assertion that what he was planning was fair to both parties.

And at the end of it, Harry had asked him two simple questions.

"Did you tell him how he made you feel? And did you ask him how you made _him_ feel?"

At first the questions hadn't made any sense. Clearly Bozer didn't care how he'd made Mac feel, or he wouldn't have said what he'd said. And knowing exactly what he'd said and done, he could easily infer how Bozer ought to be feeling.

But Harry didn't want to hear another word about it until Mac had the answers to both those questions. The pit in his stomach hadn't gone away until he'd pulled together his courage – really his anger, and his fear of disappointing his grandfather – and confronted Boze.

And found out just how wrong both of them had been.

The intervening time not talking to each other had allowed him to construct a story in his head, one that wasn't reflective of reality. He'd said some terrible things to Boze because he'd believed something that wasn't actually true. And Mac had a sinking feeling he'd done exactly the same thing now.

Two hundred and seven days.

That was how long Jack Dalton had been his cover. Over seven months. He trusted the guy with his life, pretty much every day.

He hadn't been in that cockpit with Jack and the pilot. He hadn't been on that ridge with Jack and Adams.

And even knowing all of that, knowing that he didn't have all the facts, he couldn't shake the feeling in his gut. It was fear, he knew – he was afraid of how Jack was going to react to him. And how he was going to react to Jack.

He was afraid he was right. That he and Jack were going to have that talk, and he was going to find out exactly what had happened in that cockpit, and on that ridge, and the story that he'd told himself would end up being true. He was afraid he'd spent the last two hundred and three days believing something that wasn't reflective of reality.

And he was afraid of what would happen after that.

Which was, frankly, ridiculous, he pointed out to himself as he slowly pulled on his uniform. He'd just been in a helicopter crash, hunted by what had turned out to be almost a hundred enemy soldiers, very nearly had his aorta torn open – which would have been a death sentence if it had happened in the United States, let alone out in a desert with zero medical assistance – and he regularly walked up to and poked at things that might explode.

So what about walking up to and poking at Jack Dalton scared him so much? If they were done, they were done. They'd spent their first forty days working together without liking each other, what was another hundred?

He was handed a bag containing more little orange pill bottles than Mac was really comfortable with, but a glance at the inventory revealed they were all in very small quantities, that would eventually dwindle down to a standard, non-prescription dose of ibuprofen. Just enough to get him through the PT. The nurse had no orders for him, other than a confirmation that transport from Camp Eggers to the FOB had been arranged, and he was permitted to walk out of the facility under his own power, rather than sitting in a wheelchair. He'd been on the second floor of the facility, and as he stepped out of the elevator and took in the lobby, he saw why.

He could take the steps if the elevator broke. The men down here could not.

There were operations going on in different parts of Afghanistan every day, so it was hard to say how many of the men he saw on crutches or on wheels had been part of whatever op had been spun up to get them out. He felt guilty as he walked across the severely lit space, past people who wouldn't, who couldn't even after they were healed up and discharged, and only his desire to see Higgins made him look those men in the eye.

None of them seemed to have any blame or anger towards him, and somehow it made MacGyver feel worse.

And there was no sign of their co-pilot as Mac's ever so odd-feeling legs carried him out into the blinding sunlight.

Camp Eggers was in Kabul proper, in the embassy district, and there were two MPs just outside the door. They took him in, including his temporary ID badge and the hospital bracelet that was still on his wrist - if only because he couldn't find his swiss army knife. Mac was hoping beyond hope it had been recovered with his gear. He squinted at the two men, trying to adjust to the sunlight, and then the older guy gestured towards a Humvee that was parked towards the end of the horseshoe-shaped drive.

"There's your ride, son."

He didn't have much with him, just the uniform on his back and the bag of drugs and personal effects, so Mac knocked on the window to warn the driver he was there, and then pulled open the door and tossed the bag at the foot of the passenger side before he carefully hauled himself in.

Mac was watching his handholds and trying to move reasonably quickly without aggravating his abdomen, but even the hasty glance he shot towards the driver was unnecessary. Mac recognized him just by the shape of the body sitting in that driver's seat.

He took a careful breath, letting himself get settled a second before he reached over and closed the door. This was a good opportunity, he told himself firmly, gingerly reaching across his chest for the seatbelt. This was one of the hummers that was outfitted for city driving, meaning it was older, didn't have as much power, and wasn't armored. The cabin was a little quieter.

They could talk. A couple hours to the FOB, say whatever needed to be said, and that would be the end of it.

Jack waited until he was all strapped in. "Ready to hit the road?"

"Let's do it," he replied, in the same friendly and empty tone.

"You been to Kabul proper?" Jack asked conversationally, waiting for the gate to open before easing the hummer into traffic.

Mac admitted he had not, not since arriving at Kabul International when he was first deployed. Jack was the quintessential tour guide, pointing out the various embassies and other official buildings of note. Mac listened politely, comparing the flags flying with Jack's assertions, and found that they were all quite correct.

Jack offered to stop and pick up anything Mac might need, water, a bio break. Mac politely declined, and after twenty or so minutes they were headed down the main thoroughfare, that would take them out of the city and into the desert.

Mac unzipped his uniform shirt, and then he realized that without his helmet, it was going to be harder to conk out against the window.

"So, what's the verdict?"

Mac glanced over, but Jack was eyes on the road, one elbow wedged against the door. His eye protection was on, and Mac found himself wishing he had the same shield. "Verdict?"

"Yeah." A careless gesture in his general direction. "You gonna live?"

Right. Jack hadn't gotten any updates. "Couple weeks of PT, then a month of light duty. Should be back in rotation after that."

"Good to hear," Jack said, and then the cabin settled into silence.

Mac stared out the windshield a moment, then smiled despite himself. "You didn't need to come pick me up, Jack."

"Dude, afraid you're wrong about that." Jack reached into his uniform and came up with orders, which he handed over. "We're still doing the post-op debriefings. Seems the ol' colonel wanted me out of his hair this morning."

Mac accepted the paper and opened it, though it didn't really matter, and sure enough, Dalton had been ordered to be his transport.

Which was probably just a convenience. If they'd had enough personnel injured during the op, it wasn't like there were going to be that many Pfcs wandering around twiddling their thumbs. And whatever temporarily duties they'd assigned Jack, it was probably too soon to have him deployed on more spook stuff.

"Oh. And before I forget –" Dalton reached into his uniform again, rooting around more deeply in the interior pocket, and came up with a familiar shape in deep red.

Mac blinked at him, but Jack didn't act like it was any big thing. He simply held the tool out.

"Woulda given it to you a couple days back, but I figured the second you got bored you'd take apart the bed and that pretty blonde would've been too pissed to give you her number."

Mac accepted the multitool, turning it over in his hands a moment. "You're probably right."

"You remember me takin' it away?"

Exact same tone.

"Yeah. I do," was all Mac said. The swiss army knife felt warm in his fingers.

 _If you ever feel alone, or like you got a problem you can't solve, take it out of your pocket. Look at it. And remember it's got a tool for every situation. With it, you can do just about anything._

"I didn't know you still had it. I thought maybe it made it back into my pack." As a rule, Mac didn't believe in 'signs from above' or any of the rest of that nonsense, but somehow it was always easier to hear his grandfather's wisdom when he was holding it.

"Nah, man. That was your grandpa's, wasn't it?" Jack glanced at Mac's hands. "Figured it was safer with me."

Mac opened up the multi-tool, selected the scissors, and made quick work of removing the hospital band.

"Harry gave this to me the day after my tenth birthday." He folded the tool back together, looking at each blade, measuring the thickness of the metal in comparison to the blades above and below it. Each one exactly strong enough for its intended purpose, nothing extra, nothing short.

"Look, Mac, we don't gotta talk about this right now if you don't wanna."

There was no tool for this. People, for all that their systems ran like machines, were not something he could simply take apart and reassemble. The knife had gotten him through some things that he frankly had no business surviving. Harry had been right; it had been good to him.

But it hadn't brought his father back. It hadn't helped him patch things up with Bozer. And it wasn't going to help him fix this.

"I think we do, Jack." Mac tucked the tool into his pocket, where it belonged, and put his eyes back on the road.

His cover was quiet a moment, then blew out a sigh. "Okay, then let me go first. I've had a few more days to think this through than you have, and I only got one thing I gotta say."

Mac inclined his head. "Shoot."

For a moment, there was only the road noise, the large tires loud on the actual pavement of a real highway. It could have been any highway, could have been stateside if he wasn't looking at the license plates of the vehicles around them. He wondered if Jack thought he'd chosen that word specifically, rather than merely selecting a commonly used figurative colloquialism, giving permission for someone to begin.

He wondered if Jack was right.

"I'm sorry."

Mac was unprepared for that, and he found himself looking at Jack quite without meaning to. Jack still had only one hand on the wheel, the other lying along the windowsill, and was looking right at him. As soon as he had his eyes, Jack slowly nodded.

"I didn't have your back, bud. I wasn't there the way you needed me t'be."

Mac felt his brow furrow, despite his attempt to keep his expression smooth. "I'm pretty sure you did exactly what you were trained to do," he said carefully.

His cover grinned, and Mac was almost certain if the sunglasses weren't there, he'd see it wasn't touching Jack's eyes. "I ain't talkin' about the T-men. I'm talkin' about you."

Mac took a measured breath. "Then maybe we should start with my reminding you that I'm not a child."

"No you are not," Jack agreed. "And I'm beginning to think you never got to be one."

The logical path of the conversation he'd plotted out in his head disintegrated in his mental fingers, and MacGyver glared at him. "You know what? This was a bad idea. Let's just both agree to disagree and call it good enough."

"We could do that," his cover allowed, glancing at the side-view mirror as he changed lanes. "You just tell me one thing, hoss, and I'll let it go. You tell me what day it was when you decided I was a monster."

Mac struggled to find his footing. Of _course_ this was his fault. Of course it was. The idealistic intellectual versus the cynical realist soldier. "That's a little melodramatic, don't you think?"

"Nope." There wasn't a trace of amusement on Jack's visible face. "You think I coerced a dyin' man into blowing his own head off because that was just a hair more convenient for me. And that I blew up a busload of school kids not ten minutes later. I don't know what you boys call that in La-la Land, but where I come from, that's what we call the devil himself." Jack resettled his fingers around the wheel, and Mac heard it creak.

"Now you tell me what it was I said or did that'd make you believe that, and I won't say another word about it."

No. He was not going to argue about straw men or tilt at windmills. "That's your word, not mine."

"That ain't an answer, pal."

"What do you want from me?" He swallowed back the volume with effort. "You made me a murderer, Jack. Rationalize it all you want to, but I set those charges, and there are kids – _actual_ kids – who'll never get to go back home."

Jack was quiet a moment, and Mac saw a muscle tighten along his jaw. "Then maybe we should start by my reminding _you_ that ya volunteered to join the Army and come to a war zone."

"At least I can tell the difference between an enemy combatant and a _child_!"

Dalton chuckled, low in his throat. "There we go. Was that so hard?"

Mac shook his head incredulously. Jack really thought he'd played him? "You know what? I wasn't on that ridge. I didn't see what you saw. But I damn well know that I would have found another way."

"Oh, do you now?" The drawl was back. "Lemme guess. You woulda taken an M4 apart, turned it into a trumpet, and played the fuckin' Afghan National Anthem, and everyone woulda just let bygones be bygones and went on their way."

"Ohhhh," Mac murmured sarcastically, as he caught on. "This is about the _gun_."

"No, it damn well is not about the gun!" Jack ripped off his eye protection, and Mac was stunned to see tears in the man's eyes. "Dude, I been nut to butt with you for two hundred and seven days, and you think I can't tell the damn difference between an enemy combatant and a civilian?! You don't think I tried to find a way to get us outta that fuckin' mess without killin' every damn person I saw?!" He snapped his jaw shut, then turned back to the road, shaking his head.

"Cuz if that's what you believe, brother . . . then I don't think I can be your overwatch."

I agree.

The words were on his tongue. It was the only logical resolution that this conversation could come to. There was a fundamental difference in the way they approached the work, and it wasn't because something was broken. It was the way they were wired. One to violence and one to science.

Which did not explain why Jack was crying.

Or why the pit in his stomach felt ten times larger. And that it had nothing to do with the jostling from the hummer.

Mac took a deliberate breath. " . . . I've never seen you target a non-combatant," he said slowly. "Even when you had cause." A fleeting memory, the woman who'd been hurrying towards him in Shinia. The three young men that had hassled him in Khost. The dozens of times large groups had passed by him while he was working, and any one of them could have been carrying a weapon.

Never once had Jack pulled the trigger when he didn't have to. And though he'd only done it half a dozen times in the two hundred and seven days they'd been working together, every shot had been investigated and cleared.

Jack was right. He had demonstrated, repeatedly and consistently, that he didn't shoot unless a life was in immediate danger. Even under pressure.

So why . . . why did he think that Jack would have –

He didn't. It wasn't about Jack's ability to discern friend from foe. It was about the fact that the gun Jack had used was him. It was his explosive.

"I didn't get to decide," Mac said aloud, softly. "I set explosives for one purpose and you chose to use them for another."

For a long moment, both of them were silent. When Jack finally spoke, his voice was thick. "That's the first time that's happened, isn't it. Something you took part in led to someone dyin'."

No. It wasn't. All he had to do was say a couple words to Al. It would have taken less than five minutes to get the robot up and working, and the Ghost's bomb would have blow the TALON to hell, instead of a man who was about to go stateside to see the birth of his daughter. If he'd just insisted they follow protocol, if he'd just checked the robot during the last stop, when it stalled those few seconds, and he'd known, he'd _known_ the damn thing was gonna come off the track again -

"No," is all Mac managed.

Jack waited, but he had nothing else to offer the man.

"Angus, I'm sorry. I tried to find another way. If they'd'a just been after the bird, we could have blown it and run, but that ain't how it went down."

Knowing what they knew now, Mac reluctantly had to agree. If the helo had been blown before anyone came over the ridge, they would have caught up long before he and Smiley could have laid traps on the land bridge. They would have been captured, and once the search for them started in earnest, they very likely would have been killed.

"You feel like I used ya?"

That, at least, he could answer. "No." Jack hadn't told him to demo the bird – that was SOP. And in hindsight, the lieutenant –

Smiley must have known. Maybe not about the child soldiers, but certainly that the helo would be used to take out soft targets. Then again, he'd known the charges they set on the land bridge would be used to take out soft targets.

The difference was, he thought he was laying charges to take out soft targets who had made their own decision to be there.

"Look, dude, you gotta give me more than yes and no."

His immediate thought was, no, I don't. I don't owe you anything. And that response was so terribly, horribly selfish that Mac actually closed his eyes to banish it. He owed Jack his life. Six times now, at least. Sure, he'd repaid the favor probably that many times, but he wasn't actually counting, because –

Because he didn't need to count. This wasn't about who had put in more work on the treehouse. It wasn't about who needed to use the space.

He _trusted_ Jack. And now this.

The inevitable end of this conversation was the agreement that they needed to go their separate ways. This was never going to work. Not long term.

"You knew that I'd never make that decision, and you took it away from me."

His words rang heavy in the cabin, and in his peripheral vision, he saw Jack scrub his eyes.

"Yeah, man. You're right. And that is one of the things that I fuckin' _love_ about you." 

For a split second, he didn't think he'd heard that right, and a glance at Jack showed he was smiling – all the way to his eyes – even though he was still crying.

"Oh yeah, dude. I can give you freakin' impossible odds and nothin' but the uniform on your back, and you can see nine different ways to get around it. It's like magic." He glanced at him for a moment before putting his eyes back on the road. "And ninety-nine out of a hundred times, you are on the money, son. But when it comes to that one, that little ol' one, you're wrong. You ain't never gonna make the decision you have to. And I can't take someone into combat that I can't trust to survive it."

And there it was again. That pesky word.

Trust.

"Don't take it the wrong way, man. I know you're not suicidal." Jack shook his head, like he couldn't believe his own foolishness. "When I first metcha, I thought it must be arrogance, you bein' so young – and dude, just don't, I know ya know how to blow your own nose." The knife hand came out, pre-emptively stalling him from bristling at the constant reminder that he was just a hair under twenty. "But now, buddy, now I get it."

Mac gave him a sideways look. "There's always another way, Jack. Always."

Jack hesitated. "Mac, you were wrecked. I dunno if you remember, bud, but you were in a world a hurt. The lieutenant tried to calm you down, just like she woulda her own son. And not once did you call out for your mom. You acted like Smiley wasn't even there."

His gut tightened, and Mac tried very hard not to change his expression.

"I ain't gonna pry, but I got a feelin' somebody let you down, and they left ya to fend for yourself. Military parents, maybe just absentee parents, latch key kid, orphan, happens all the time." He somehow made it sound like it wasn't a judgement. "That's why you know just about everythin' about everythin'. And why you're doing every damn thing you can to avoid bein' in a position where you gotta rely on anybody for anythin'."

This time his mouth moved without him. "Really? So that's why I wired explosives and counted on Smiley to place the detonators without blowing us up. Or gave my back to you when we were out in the field. Thanks for clearing that up."

Jack gave a short, irritated huff. "I know you trust people to do their _jobs_ , Mac. I'm talking about trustin' other people with _you_."

Mac rolled his eyes to hide the fact the pit in his stomach had widened into a gaping hole. "What does that even mean?"

" _That_!" Two fingers stabbed in his direction. "Dammit, Angus, every time I get _anywhere_ close to gettin' you to open up, the sirens go off and Fort MacGyver goes into lockdown. The guys asked me what the hell I did to ya, and I hadda tell 'em Uncle Sam issued you in this condition."

The second topic was easier to address than the first. "Those guys in the non-uniform headgear . . . they were your old Delta unit, weren't they."

Jack's jaw set, and Mac knew it was because of the deflection – not his most subtle. The sniper didn't call him on it.

"Hell yes they are. You really think I'd trust anybody else with ya?" Then he growled. "What the _fuck_ do you think I mean when I say I got your back? Mac, listen to me. I trust you with my _life_ , brother. And there ain't many men I can say that about. When you wave off a shot, I _trust_ ya, because I know that ginormous brain of yours is twenty steps ahead of me. But you're not givin' me that same trust, not where it counts. Not in here." He thumped his chest. "And I don't know how to make you understand you can. That ain't fair, dude."

And that wasn't fair. He did trust Jack. With his life. Every time they went out in the field. And more than that. Which was why –

Which was why it was better to call it off now.

Before he got attached.

Before he lost Jack.

Mac took a deep breath, and stared out the passenger window.

This isn't going to work.

 _But it could._

We are so impossibly different.

 _Impossible is not a scientific term._

"I'll never use that gun," he said, into the quiet. Because that was what it came down to.

He heard the other man's hand slide down the steering wheel. "Yeah, I don't think anybody's gonna use that gun ever again."

Mac couldn't help it. He snorted. "I could reassemble it with factory parts –"

"Nah. I get it. You said it yourself, you didn't come here to kill." There was a long pause. "Is that why . . . why you don't trust me? Because that's what I do? You think I'll turn on you?"

. . . no.

He knew that wasn't the case. A Delta operator was weeping openly in front of him, cut to the bone because a nineteen year old yelled at him for doing what he thought had to be done.

No. Far worse than yell. Jack had listened to a pilot ask him for a gun because there wasn't enough morphine in that kit to take away his pain. Jack had done everything he could – and having seen Jack in action, that was a _lot_ – and still made a decision to kill everyone in that ravine. One that he hadn't taken lightly. And a nineteen year old that he _trusted_ had told him point blank that he thought Jack hadn't given a damn about either one. That what he'd done was tantamount to murder.

When Jack had been staring at that bullet in the cave, turning it over and over in his fingers, it wasn't because he wanted to use it, or because holding it made him feel better.

Mac had spent nearly every waking moment with that guy for over two hundred days, and he knew in his heart that Jack Wyatt Dalton was a good man. That was the story that was accurate.

"I do trust you," he said softly, and then he made a concerted effort to strengthen his voice. "I'm sorry, Jack. I'm . . . I'm a little out of practice."

Jack didn't say anything, eyes still on the road, and Mac got the feeling he was expected to elaborate. "I, uh, I don't usually get along with jocks. We don't have much in common, and . . . well, you're wrong."

He saw Jack's eyebrows rise. "You outta practice with trustin', or apologizin'? You ain't doing either too well."

And Mac found himself smiling.

"Another one of my many character flaws," he admitted. "I shouldn't have said those things to you. I know you didn't make those decisions lightly. But I . . . I do let my guard down with you, Jack. Way more than I ever thought I could. You're the first person since . . . well, I guess since Boze. You made some hard calls, and I flinched. I'm sorry."

Jack didn't respond immediately, but Mac couldn't think of anything else to say, and the cabin settled back into silence. They'd probably gone twenty miles before Jack shifted in his seat.

"I get the feelin' you got your reasons."

Mac hesitated. "I do," he said. "But you're right, it's not fair, and you don't deserve it."

Dalton looked at him, with dry eyes this time, and gave him a nod. And just like that, the pit was –

Was gone.

Jack replaced his shades and accelerated. Now that they'd come to some kind of agreement – or at least some kind of peace – there was no need for the easy pace he'd set. "So what now?"

What now indeed. Mac looked out the window for inspiration, but traffic was starting to thin out, and the man in the Volkswagon beside them was not interested in looking at the soldiers in the vehicle that could drive over his.

"I'm always going to look for another way."

"Yeah, I know you are," Jack replied, then sighed. "And I am always going to make that one in a hundred decision to bail your ass out, whether you agree or not. And that pass I gave you was a one-time only, by the way. You pull this stunt again, I will kick your skinny ass from one end of the FOB to the other."

Mac felt himself smirk. "You'll try."

Jack glanced his way a little, and MacGyver could imagine the look he was getting. "Oh, we're gonna start back at the beginning, huh?"

Back at the beginning. When Jack was just an opinionated, loud mouth knuckle-dragger.

And he was just a scrawny, blond-haired know-it-all.

"And speakin' of, I know something you don't, doctor."

Mac politely raised his eyebrows, and Jack nodded. "Yeah. Turns out, fentanyl woulda been totally safe to give you. It's a vasoline whatever, but it wouldn't'a made your bleed any worse."

"I think you mean vasodilator. And really?" Mac filed that away under things that he needed to look up the next time he had internet access.

"Yeah, really. Jesus, you are one mean little snake when you ain't feelin' your best, you know that?"

Mac wasn't particularly proud of those moments. "Well, you show weakness around jocks . . ."

"Yeah, okay, that's fair," Jack allowed. "Well then, sounds to me like we need to set a few ground rules."

MacGyver raised an eyebrow. "Because that worked _so_ well the last time . . ."

"Maybe not rules," Jack allowed with a little smile. "Maybe guidelines."

"Guidelines," Mac repeated flatly.

"Yeah. Like, we don't go tryin' to run the other off when we think the odds are too bad. We walk into a fight together, we walk out together."

Mac's first instinct was to disagree. If they were ever in a fight that Mac knew wasn't going to end well, he was going to do everything he damn well could to make sure Jack got out of it alive. But then he realized that worked both ways, and Jack wasn't exactly a moron, so with very few exceptions, they'd simply be working against the other's attempts to save them. And possibly spending valuable time fighting with one another when they could be working together to even the odds.

"Okay. As long as you give me a chance to solve the problem without killing anyone."

"Done," Jack agreed. "And the next time you get laid up, I won't leave you in the dark. And I will always have some kinda toy or whatever to keep you occupied."

Mac gave him a long look. "Really?"

Jack glanced at him, sunglasses firmly in place. "Dude, I left you alone for like, forty minutes, and you dismantled an M9 down to component parts."

"Actually, that was even dumber than you think," Mac said with a shake of his head. "There are some incredibly powerful springs in the trigger mechanism, I'm lucky I didn't lose an eye."

"Maybe we should make that flat-up a rule . . ."

Somehow rules didn't seem like the way to go. "Maybe we should just trust each other," Mac suggested quietly.

Jack looked at him – really looked at him. "You sure about that? It'd mean actually lettin' someone else take on some of the important stuff. It wouldn't all be ridin' on your shoulders anymore."

The radio. Adams. Things he wouldn't have been so adamant about if he hadn't been down a few pints of blood and almost out of his mind with pain. But still, Jack had a point. He'd done more to keep them alive, those twenty or so hours, than Mac had. And he would have kept doing it, even in the radio hadn't worked. He would have done everything he could to keep them alive, even if it meant never walking off that mountain himself.

And even when he'd left, he hadn't. He'd sent three Delta operators to save his life and get him and Adams to safety. He said he'd be there when Mac woke up, and he had been.

It was going to take him a while, to be able to surrender those life and death decision to someone else. But the big ones, the important ones – they were going to be safe with Jack.

"I know." He was quiet a moment. "I can't say I'll be awesome at it, but I'll try."

Jack was nodding slowly. "That's all I can ask out of ya, bud." For a long time, the only sounds were the tires on the pavement. "I'm serious about the toys, though. Dude. You're a menace."

Mac made a scoffing sound, and dropped his right hand back to his pocket, where his grandfather's swiss army knife was tucked safe and sound.

When he pulled it out, he could hear Harry's voice. It was part of the tool. Jack had carried it, and that made him part of it too.

And Harry was right. With them, Mac could do just about anything.

-M-

FIN

-M-

So this is not where I thought this would go when I started it. It was supposed to be a nice, simple premise, the first time Jack learned how to deal with an injured Mac. But of course it's not that easy. Turns out that first included a bunch of other firsts.

The first time Jack learns that Mac doesn't just not like guns – he's not going to use one. Like, ever. Period.

The first major fight they have after they become friends.

The first time Jack realizes just how deep Mac's fear of relying on others really runs.

The first time Mac truly grasps what Jack means when he says that he's got Mac's back.

And, the first time I am not entirely sure that I got them in character.

Many thanks to **Gib** and **MarenMary93** , who allowed me to play with their little soldier man toys, albeit very inexplicitly. ;) And **BookNeed007** , let me know what you think, and whether I hit the nail on the head for you or you had a little something else in mind.


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